Game Review: Call of Duty 3 (Wii)
Overview: Call of Duty has become a good, solid franchise for Activision. It's a classic FPS, but set in the gritty reality of World War II. I've played through the first two in the series on two different platforms, first on the PC and second on the Xbox. With this third entry, I get to try it out with yet another different control scheme. I've been looking forward to see how an FPS works with the Wiimote, and now I have my chance.
With the Call of Duty series, you're basically plopped down right into the middle of the war as another generic soldier fighting the good fight. You're not some crazy action hero and you're not a lone renegade. You fight with your fellow soldiers and do your best to follow orders and not get shot in the process.
Shininess: From the get go, I've been impressed with each of the previous Call of Duty games. The visuals find their strong points and focus on them, which turns out to be a very distinct lack of shininess. But that's a good thing. There are no bright colors or lots of flashing lights because that wouldn't be very realistic to a war setting. Lots of washed out browns, greys, and greens fill your screen at any given time. You're not red and the enemy isn't blue. You're all wearing army garb and sometimes it's hard to tell from a glance which guy you're supposed to shoot. In other games, that would be bad, but in this one, it adds to the authenticity.
For an early entry onto the Wii, the level and detail of the graphics is passable. It's not gonna be crazy hi-res like on a 360 or PS3, but it's not crap either. When playing the game, you get definitely get the feeling that this is the early lifecycle game that it is. The graphics aren't much better than the best looking game on the preceeding system, but you can tell that there is the capability lying there for game designers to fully exploit later on.
The sound in the game is very realistic. Lots of good splodeys and bullets whizzing by. There is minimal music to add to the really down and dirty grit feeling of the game. One thing, sound-wise, that I've always liked about this series is the fact that sometimes you lose all sound if a particularly large explosion goes off near you. You see from your field of vision that your character has been blown off his feet and true to what they say, you don't really even hear the full force of the explosion. You catch a bit of it and then just dead silence. If you haven't run into it before, it can be quite eerie. A few moments later you hear that high-pitched ringing letting you know you're starting to get your hearing back. It's just a nice touch that really adds to the quality of the game.
Funness: Now, to move on to what you've all been wating for: How does it play? The short answer is that it plays suprisingly well for the first attempt at this genre with a whole new control style. The game takes full advantage of the Wiimote, using the motion sensing to move your crosshairs around on the screen. Because you can't lift it up and move it over to the side as you would a mouse, the pointer has a bit of "drift" and really will never stay in one place, but that's so you can really spin around if you need to. At first I thought it was going to really screw with my accuracy, but that Wii learning curve kicks in and it's not long before I'm bustin' some caps in some Nazi bitches with ease. To be fair, I think the MaKB combo of the PC is going to be inherently easier to control, but I also have played quite a few more FPSs on the PC. The Wii controls are definitely better and more intuitive than a dual-analog stick approach, though. When you hold the A button to look down your sights, the drift greatly reduces for even more accuracy. On top of the pointer motion, this games takes advantage of the accelerometers in the Wiimote and the Nunchuck for various actions. You shake the 'chuck to the side to switch weapons and you jab the 'mote forward to smack the butt of your gun into someone's face. I even ran into a mini-game of sorts where you come around the corner and a German shoves his rifle across your neck, trying to choke you out. You have to quickly push him back by alternating thrusts with the 'chuck and the 'mote. When you finally push him off you, you make a downward swipe with both units and knock his lights out with his own gun. It's actually pretty cool.
A couple of minor things that could use some work, though, is the access to the grenades and the objectives. You toss grenades and smoke bombs by pressing right or left on the d-pad at the top of the Wii mote. Since your thumb more naturally rests on the A button, it can be a bit of a pain to reach up to the d-pad. It may mess up your throwing accuracy as well. Also, to check your objectives, you have to hit the 1 button down at the base of the 'mote. If you are a non-mutant as I am, you don't have fingers down there. You have to reach over with your 'chuck hand and tap it with a finger to check your objectives. I feel this may happen with a few of the first waves games for the Wii. Some games just need more buttons to really get the full control and the Wii is designed to reduce those buttons. A little bit more time and experience with what the controls can do will hopefully let designers figure out more ways to play with it.
But controls aside, it's another solid entry from Activision for this series. I particularly enjoy the variety of objectives in the CoD series. It's not all just "go over here and shoot people along the way." Sometimes you will have to defend a position, give coordinates to a tank you're riding on to take out Nazi turrets, or even sneak up on a dude peeing on a bush and smack him upside the head.
Worthiness: I'd say this game is a good showing for the early days of the Wii. It's not an absolute must-have like WiiSports or Zelda, but it's definitely up there. If you like the CoD series and have a Wii, I think it's worth the money and you shan't be disappointed. If you wanna check out how an FPS plays on the Wii but don't wanna plunk down the 50 clams, at least rent it or visit a friend who has it. It's the start of things to come for the Wii.
What say you?!