Call Of Duty

We sit down and review Call Of Duty: WWII. We are heading back to the Second World War again. Here's our review of Call Of Duty: WWII

The next installment to the Call Of Duty franchise has dropped and looks to take us all back to the roots of the game. Sledgehammer Games and a few of the other developers in Activision's wheelhouse have opted to take us all the way back to World War II and give us all even more Nazis to kill in our video games. Not in an over-the-top satirical kind of way, but in a grounded more realistic kind of way. At least on that mirrors more of how things truly went down in real history. That and also giving the franchise a chance to go back to its roots in terms of gameplay while adding in a few other things that may or may not have been needed here. Without further adieu, here is our review of Call Of Duty: WWII.

Story

Let's travel all the way back to 1944 during the times where U.S. troops stormed the beaches of Normandy and then join up with private Daniels and Zussman as they go out to do what they are supposed to do best. That is to be all that they can be and help turn the tide of the war in their own little way while taking on missions and helping out other squads and militias as they try to push back on the German campaign. Most of us know the basic story of World War II by now and this is just one more slice of it all and the few weeks and months that transpired for this team and all of its members.

Hated

I will say that I was starting to dislike the regenerating health in the Call Of Duty titles over the years, as had a lot of players. In this one here, Sledgehammer Games had gone back to the old days where we were required to "pick up" health or request it from our medics. I am in support of this here as it adds a nice level of difficulty onto Call Of Duty: WWII. What it looks like the team forgot to do was remove out the "regenerating" UI portion of it all which would leave me unsure on where my current health was at. Sure it was nice to see that my health was getting whittled down in the firefight by the flashing red and blood streaks we have been used to, but it would fade away just as in all of the titles as of late and if you were not paying attention to the health bar, you would forget that you were now in desperate need of healing to press on. It seems odd that they would not just leave the overlay on there to help remind you that you are bleeding out, but just hope that you kept checking in. Of course, this all led to quite a few times were I thought I was perfectly fine to rush in and save the day only to be taken down in one shot. That or use a health pack when I was only down a slight bit due to the onscreen prompts.

Healing aside, as that is something that a player could overcome, my next big issue with Call Of Duty: WWII has to be the fact that enemies seemed to be able to negate cover while having vastly superior cover. This was even on the "normal" mode where everything should have been balanced. There were quite a few firefights I had where I would have to go out of my way to go around someone's cover to take down the enemy, which was fair, only to try to use the same cover and be hiding behind tissue paper. This was not always the case, but it occurred more often than it should have. One of the big ones had to be a certain snow cabin later in the game. Sniping through their cover was a challenge, fine, but when occupying the same space I would get gunned down while trying to use the building as needed. Maybe this was a bug or maybe it was something else, but it sure did break the fun of the game when the average enemy had vastly superior cover when they were using it and not when I would in the same way.

Building off that slightly, this also seemed to persist in a few of the stealth missions in Call Of Duty: WWII. Obviously, I should not be able to see through solid objects or perform any kind of stealth actions as such. Perfectly fine, but again like the shooting, I would need to reset my progress as randomly enemies could see through and attack the same large objects even when I was completely motionless. Again, also on the normal difficulty of the game as the harder modes could get a pass on this for the sake of giving more of a challenge. It just seemed to break the flow of gameplay in Call Of Duty: WWII when the rules would change on a dime for these instances or whenever the game wanted to. I was not able to do this so it seems odd that it would still persist in the final build of the game.

Loved

There were of course quite a few things in Call Of Duty: WWII that I loved or I would have put the game down and moved right along. One of the bigger items here had to be the story and the level of detail that Sledgehammer was able to go into for the setting. I am not a huge WWII buff but I have learned quite a bit about it over the years. This had to have been one of the best stories I have been able to enjoy that showed us all a bit more on how the whole conflict happened. There is always literary license out there, but this story mirrored a few that I had heard from elders who were in the real mix of it all. The team was able to get that portrayed insanely well and kept me intrigued throughout. I do not think there was a single part of all of it that made me want to just press on to shoot more things. Insane kudos to that.

Another aspect that I fully expected to land in my Hated section above had to be the actual shooting and gunplay in Call Of Duty: WWII. There is a new learning curve here from all of the other recent title we have played as we are back to WWII era firearms. They loaded a lot differently. They shot a lot differently. Almost everything about the was different than the more modern weapons. This carried over into the gameplay for Call Of Duty: WWII and at first was a bit jarring. But then you realize it brought back some of the difficulty of the game franchise and made you have to work on the skill instead of just pressing X to win. Once I was able to get a hang of it all again it felt perfectly natural and helped out with the game so very much. I kind of hope this is how future titles in the Call Of Duty line go, but I have a feeling it will stay with just this era for now.

Lastly, I will have to say that the addition of having AI support units that actually support you in Call Of Duty: WWII was a great touch instead of forcing us to search around for gear and items. Having a teammate for ammo, health, spotting, grenades, and air support was a great little touch that I thought would break the game from the onset. What is the worry of dying or running out of ammo if there is a guy around who will be able to resupply you after a set amount of time? It did not detract from the worry and added an extra level of realism to the overall game. I will admit there were times where I hid in cover until they were ready to dole out more of what they had, but it made more sense for them to have the gear you needed than to randomly find in on an enemy soldier who was using a different weapon second before you took their head off. Great feature here.

Overview

All of what I have here is totally based on the single-player campaign for Call Of Duty: WWII and hopefully you saw that from the onset. As you cannot truly gauge a game based on the players out there, that is what we have here to be sure, to be honest about it all. But, the gameplay is pretty damn solid and even though I had some issues with what I think are bugs, they are easy to overcome and have a good time with. They also do not persist over to the multiplayer so if you are in to Call Of Duty just for that aspect then none of that will matter. Nonetheless, this is yet another solid entry into the franchise and I fully recommend picking it up. I was not let down and I am certain that none of you will be as well.

I give Call Of Duty: WWII 25 Found Mementos on the Found Memento scale.

Call Of Duty: WWII was developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 3^rd, 2017. A PS4 copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.