Call of Duty 2 Review (Morgana)
*Single player campaign only review*
One of innumerable 00s World War II shooters. This is possibly the best of the bunch.
The range of actions in Cod2 is small – it’s aim down sights, shoot, crouch, reload, wait while your health regenerates. Sometimes you throw a grenade or a smoke if you are feeling spicey. But these are all incredibly tight. The guns sound punchy and feel kinetic. There’s noise and dust kicked up as you fight. And before you have time to think you are in another situation.
The game takes place in three campaigns on three fronts. There are Russians in Russia, Brits in Africa and then France, and Americans in France. You crawl through pipes, march in with tanks, fight door-to-door in villages and everything in between. The changing locations & situations – attack, defence, ambush – give the constant variety needed to keep you engaged.
There are turret and vehicle sections. They’re fine. You don’t get much freedom of action in them but they are intense and cinematic.
Sometimes the limits of the game’s age show. Mission maps are miniscule, and if you pay too much attention you may notice you are almost double-backing on yourself implausibly. There is no wildlife and no locals – every single human being you see is a soldier for you or a German. But the missions are vastly better than most, because the flow through is so intuitive. You’re unlikely to get lost or confused or frustrated as you are guided through effectively.
The tone is also occasionally odd. You are having a boisterous, raucous adventure. This involves shooting your enemies when they are down – otherwise they will try to kill you with their spare pistol. You also blow up a building full of trapped enemy soldiers in an early Russian mission, followed by rousing music. And then between missions you are given solemn quotes about how awful war is. Pick one, Infinity Ward!
I would not recommend playing on the hardest difficulty. CoD2 is most fun when there is not too much friction. This is because of the limitations of the game’s design. You are confined to real weapons and regenerating health, so they have to shower you with enemies and grenades and force heavy recoil on you when you get hit. Otherwise how else to increase the challenge? But the result slows the game right down, forcing you to hide in cover and regenerate endlessly.
Play on hardened or lower and you can enjoy the game in its best form – racing from location to location, carving through the Nazis like a harvester through a field of wheat.
Overall, CoD2 is a classic for a reason. As high art it's 6/10. As moment-to-moment gameplay, it's 10/10