Call of Duty 5 (a.k.a. Call of Duty: World at War) has several things that Call of Duty 4 did not. Like Capture the Flag and War. And an online four player co-op campaign. Oh, and a local splitscreen co-op campaign! Nice! I’ve long been looking forward to playing this, and last night before going to see Quantum of Solace (mini-review: not nearly as good as Casino Royale), Steve and I played us some CoD:WaW splitscreen co-op.

The Good

• Its Existence
  The developers didn’t have to put this into the game, but they did, and I’m grateful. I really enjoy playing splitscreen co-op games with Steve, and I’m glad that this game gave us the opportunity.
• It’s Fun
  The co-op campaign, so far, has been fun to play. I chose the competitive mode, where you compete for points. This is on by default, so I’m maybe I should have said “didn’t un-choose” the mode. But I like racking up the kills and seeing my points total go up as I work through the level. The levels so far have been somewhat interesting, though very scripted (but I didn’t expect otherwise). I ran out of ammo for my machine gun a lot, and had to use a rifle, which I’m not so good with. The flame thrower is fun, but of limited use. And I lost it going to the next mission.

The Bad

• Character Differentiation
  Usually I don’t have any problems trying to determine who to shoot. But in this game I do. I often shoot anyway, and let the score (minus red or plus yellow) tell me if I’m hitting a good guy or bad. That’s ridiculous.
• Mission Fail from One Death
  Playing these games, you typically fail the mission when both you and your partner die. Once, however, I was still alive after Steve died, and we failed. How does that work?

The Ugly

• Doesn’t Use Whole Screen
  Playing splitscreen, the two screen are beside each other. But there is area both above and below each screen that is unused, and it’s quite annoying. Screen real estate is precious - please use it!
• No Leveling Up
  Back when Treyarch first started talking about this game, they gave the impression that you’d be able to level up your character from any of the game’s modes (except maybe competitive splitscreen). I’m here to tell you that this is not the case. You do not get to level up your character playing this game in splitscreen mode, which is quite disappointing.

The Rest

That’s after playing for about an hour. If my opinion changes any after more playtime, I’ll add a follow-up post.

Yesterday after my daily walk I picked up Call of Duty: World at War at the Blockbusters right beside work. (My new place of work is in a handy location!) I popped it in around 8pm last night, and after a software update, I was ready to go! I played for about two hours and got to level 9.

I didn’t try anything except for competitive online multiplayer, and looked around the menus a little to see what else was available. Here are my thoughts:

Pros

• Four Player Splitscreen
  To be honest, I was worried about this one. No released info prior to this game’s release indicated that there would be a four player splitscreen mode, and believe me, I looked! So I’m quite relieved to see that it’s in there. While that’s great, it also hasn’t changed at all from the way Call of Duty 4 did it. It would have been nice to have profile support so that my buddies and I could level up our players.
• Nice Level Design
  I didn’t get to see all the maps, but I was very impressed with the maps that I did see. I spent a lot of time just looking at the level design instead of shooting enemies. It was especially enjoyable to see the Japanese themed levels. I have no idea yet how well the levels are play balanced, because my experience so far is so minimal. But so far so good.
• Gore High/Low Setting
  I forget, actually, what this setting is called, but the game allows you to tune down the gore effects. I haven’t turned on this setting yet, because I want to see how bad it is. But I like knowing that this is here in case I want to use it.
• Much Like CoD4
  This game plays much like CoD4 did, which is a good thing. The controls are the same, so there’s nothing new to learn. Any CoD4 fan can jump right into this game and feel at home. It’s like a huge expansion pack, which some might quibble with, but I don’t mind. I knew that when I was buying the game.
• Lots of Modes
  You can play the single player campaign. You can play the same campaign co-op splitscreen with a friend. Or you can play it co-op online with up to three friends. Then you can turn on competitive online co-op mode where you compete for points. Or you can play competitive multiplayer online. Or you can play competitive multiplayer splitscreen. Whew! Nice!

Cons

• Menus Navigation is Slow
  The game spends a lot of time loading menus, which is strange. Why can’t it load them in the background? Menus don’t take up that much memory…
• Server Disconnect
  At the end of every game I played last night, I got a warning that the server has disconnected. I seemed to maintain my stats, but this was still a bit worrisome.
• Same Maps
  The matchmaking system kept putting me on the same two or three maps, and I rarely got to see some of the others.
• No War in Splitscreen
  I did check out the splitscreen options, and noticed that the game type War isn’t available in splitscreen! Usually we play DM, TDM, or HQ, because the other game types don’t lend themselves very well to our style of play and the fact that we’re only four players. But I thought that War could have been a good mode for four players. Unhappily, I’ll never find out.
• Connection Issues
  Playing the beta at my friend Todd’s house, he had a lot of connection issues. We assumed it was the internet connection. But I had connection issues twice last night, and usually my internet is rock solid. I don’t know if this is the game or my service provider or my home network, but it was annoying and I thought I’d mention it.
• Zombie Mode?
  Now I haven’t experience this first hand because I haven’t completed the game yet. But seriously. Zombie mode? Is this a FPS horror game or a FPS war game? I think that the developers could have spent their time on better things than this. I’m not into horror, but if I was, I’d should buy a horror game, not a Call of Duty game.

Final Thoughts

I like this game a lot, just as I liked Call of Duty 4 a lot. It brings up good memories of playing Call of Duty 2, but it has all the cool stuff from Call of Duty 4. Best of both worlds. Now I can’t wait to get to level 14 so that I can play Headquarters and War online!

I do wonder one thing though, and I hope someone out there can answer this. Playing splitscreen co-op, does player two get to level up and progress? Is this information saved?

Here’s a video showing some of what’s in the CoD:WaW multiplayer. (Though they incorrectly state this CoD5 has the first appearance of tanks.)

CoD: World at War Secret Mode - It’s called Nazi Zombie survival mode. You unlock it after you complete the single player game. It’s a 4 player co-op battle for your life. Check out the footage here.

Is Activision going to screw PS3 users once again? So far the Call of Duty: World at War Limited Edition has only been revealed for the 360 an PC.

Activision’s “Day One Advantage” for CoD5 seems more of cash grab that feature to me. “Hey look, you can pay to cheat at our game!”

War and Capture the Flag are back in Call of Duty 5. I just hope that no previous modes fell by the wayside as a result, especially Headquarters!

You all know Capture the Flag, so I thought I’d take a moment to describe War. If you have Call of Duty 3, you already have War. Go play, you’ll see.

If not, here’s the skinny.

There are five flags, or positions, and they don’t move. (If it’s like CoD3, you’ll be able to change that number in the match’s settings.) Your team starts off owning two of them, and the opposing team owns two of them. The last middle flag is owned by nobody. It’s the one under contention. Your job is to go to the flag and raise your banner by standing near the flag for a set amount of time. Once you’ve captured that flag, the next flag in line (one of the enemy’s flags) becomes neutral and you have to go race to it and capture it. Once that one is captured, you have to capture the last flag and once that is done, you win!

Of course, the problem is that the enemy is doing the same thing, but in reverse.

This game is a little more tactical than other game modes and a valid strategy is to wait at the next, uncontested, flag, hoping that your team will soon capture the previous flag. Or if your team is hard pressed you can wait at your own flag that will be made neutral if the next flag is taken away, so that you can take it quickly and send the battle back to the previous flag.

All in all it’s an enjoyable game mode, and I’m glad that they brought it back for CoD5.

Now, can anyone confirm if Headquarters is in CoD5? Four player splitscreen? Anyone? Anyone?

CoD:WW Mulitplayer revealed

Looks like PC and 360 gamers are getting a demo of CoD5, but Activision shafts PS3 users once again. Surprised? No. Annoyed? Yes.

Co-optimus is reporting that “the 360 and PS3 version [of CoD5] will also feature a 2-player offline splitscreen mode. If that wasn’t cool enough in it’s own right, we’ve learned that the co-op mode will feature the same addictive Perks System that made Call of Duty 4 so popular.”

Now that is cool news. My friend Steve and I play a lot of co-op games and just finished Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (anyone want to trade for Army of Two?). So I’m really looking forward to playing through the campaign with perks with a friend. Great stuff.

Not only that, but PS3Fanboy is reporting that the game will have 4 player local co-op! I don’t know where they get that information from, though, because the press release (available at Co-optimus, linked below) mentions nothing about that. So I don’t think that this particular rumour is true.

Anyway. Good times are a comin’!

Call of Duty World at War Co-Op Details Emerge

I never got any of the previous Call of Duty games because I was sick of all the WWII games. But I loved Call of Duty 4, and CoD5 is built on the same engine as CoD4. The game will be based in World War II, and is much more brutal, see below:

“Also, this is how gritty it is: ‘The opening scene of the first level we are shown is a Japanese commander stubbing a cigarette out in the eye of a prisoner before slitting his throat - the blood splatters and dribbles down the side of the tent you are being held in. He turns towards you to deal out the same treatment but help arrives just in time. Cue a daring level-long escape.’”

It will also have co-op, seems likes that’s a big buzz word this year, which is good. Multiplayer will have vehicles and squads too. There are a lot of shooters coming out later this year / early next. This one is a big maybe for me right now.

CoD5 has co-op, vehicles in multiplayer, CoD4 engine, every format apart from PSP