Call of Duty was a phenominal game. It came on the heels of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, which, I an say, blew all of our minds with its immersion. Well, CoD took MoH.. lined it up in its crosshairs, reloaded its Thompson, and called in an airstrike on it. Who can forget the scenes of the parachute drop into Brecourt.. or the boat crossing and later deathfield crossing of Stalingrad. Call of Duty put you in the middle of the battlefield, and it did so with blinding realism.

Well CoD is back.. and its packing some serious heat. To begin with, the game starts out with more of the crazy battle you loved in the original. Starting at the battle of the bulge, it grips you with a great story line. You get to do the usual missions, and you even get behind the gun of a few choice vehicles (including a bomber’s guns!).

The missions are again VERY immersive. For example: In the battle of the bulge.. while you are whailing away with a machine gun, trying to keep the germans from overrunning you position, sending in all manner of tank and halftrack to mess with you, you can see wayy off in the distance, your cohorts trying to hold their own stretch of the line. You never feel alone. And you ALWAYS feel like fate’s fickle finger will strike you down with an errant bullet.

As if getting more awesome missions wasn’t enough, the multiplayer, which IMHO was one the best WWII multiplayer shooter to date, has had some improvements on a massive scale.

First, they included vehicles. They do feel similar to say BF1942, but somehow there is a bit more realism. They seem to handle more like I imagine they might have in the real world. Also, they never overpower the rest of the game. Inf are still the bread and butter of the multiplayer maps.

And speaking of maps.. there are a slew of new ones. One , called Rhine Valley, is like Bergesgaden (sp?) the castle like structure that was high on a hill overlooking a town and the fortress home of hitler. Its obviously been played with, but having this fort on the hill overlooking a town that you can go down and fight in rules. The angles are steep, and the fighting is frenzied. A couple of statioary 88’s provide fixed protection against tanks.

Lastly are the improvements to the infantry. There is now a machine gunner. Who haas to be deployed to fire, but if he gets deployed, can cause some serious havoc. Next there is a few new other guns. one of note is the German gewehr 43 automatic rifle. Which acts alot like the allies M1 Garand. It adds a much needed balance to the rifles in the game. And my personal favorite addition… SMOKE GRENADES! The smoke adds to the chaos, as when you just can’t seem to get by a defneder’s area… you and your pals, can pour smoke on an area and rush it. VERY COOL.

All in all, this game is more Call of Duty, with multiplayer enhancements that will knock your socks off.

Russell gives it :

Firing Squad 91% out of 100%

Gamespot 8.9 ediors / 9.3 overall out of 10

GameSpy 3.5 Stars out of 5

WorthPlaying 9.5 out of 10

Avault 4.5 Stars out of 5