Game Review: Call of Duty: World at War

Will Radcliffe - Houston Chronicle

Call of Duty: World at War is a dizzying display of the brutality of World War II, taking players on a journey through battlefields in the Pacific, Russia and Germany -- a journey that will leave players thinking that war is anything but a game.

The first-person shooter twists its way through the war using two main narratives -- U.S. Marine Corps Pvt. Benjamin Miller and Red Army Pvt. Dimitri Petrenko -- set in close-quarters infantry combat. Players will be exposed to some of the most graphic battlefield action seen in a video game as they take military objectives street by street, island by island. The game does include an option to adjust the level of graphic violence shown on screen -- which might be a good idea for those looking for more of a PG-13 action game.

Want to play it for yourself? Find it in the Military.com Entertainment Store

Leaving the game settings as they come, gamers will see prisoners being tortured and executed in grisly detail, and soldiers shooting, stabbing, exploding and dying all around -- all in the first two minutes. After that comes torching soldiers with flamethrowers and running over charred corpses and dismembered bodies. And the brutality comes for you as well, in the shape of bared bayonets looking for a meaty part of your body.

Treyarch, the game's maker, also added video clips of war footage between missions. Seeing the faces of soldiers and scenes of real battle hammers home the reality of the carnage. To round out the experience, Treyarch immerses players in a detailed game featuring beautiful backdrops and very good gameplay. The enemy artificial intelligence is decent, but it's the mission setup that provides most of the game's shining moments. You'll find snipers in trees, disturbing tunnel warfare (again with flamethrowers) and plenty of enemy ambushes.

To break up some of the hand-to-hand fighting, the game includes one mission as a gunner in a PBY Catalina -- an American flying boat -- patrolling the Pacific. This gorgeous-looking mission sends players running about the plane, firing on Japanese warships and defending the ship against fighter planes.

And to keep the game from gathering dust after finishing the solo campaign, Call of Duty: World at War also includes plenty of multiplayer action -- including the standard hop-online-and-gun-everyone-down death match. New to the franchise is a cooperative play mode in which four players can simultaneously play through the campaign online.

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