Call of Duty® 3 for Nintendo Wii
- ESRB Descriptor: Mild Language Realistic Blood Realistic Violence
- ESRB Rating: T - (Teen)
- Publisher: Activision
- Genre: Shooter / FPS
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It's France, it's 1940, and we're locking up! - Call Of Duty 3 (Wii)
Pros
Brilliant controls, excellent set pieces.
Cons
Abysmal slowdown, average graphics and sound, complete lack of mulitplayer.
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
If you want WW2, go for World at War. This is sub-par by todays standards, and the slowdown is a gamebreaker.
Might I initally point out that I have not played the other versions of Call of Duty 3, and that this is a review solely for the Wii version at face value. Nothing more, nothing less.
With that out the way, lets get started!
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The Call of Duty games have always been the premier WW2 shooters out there, even above the first few Medal of Honours. And as this is a WW2 shooter, the plot should be pretty obvious. You take control of a silent member of a loudmouth group of soldiers in 1940s France, trying to push the Germans out of the country. Obviously the only way to do this is to blow stuff up and kill everything with no regard for your own safety. You've gotta feel for these Germans some day.
That is the basic plot. The whole story revolves around you taking control of someone in one of four different armies (British, American, Canadian and Polish) and forcing the Germans back from four different view points. Each mission has a slightly different task to offer, although the easiest way to do it is to kill everyone in sight, then wander around trying to find the checkpoint. The armies all have slightly different weapons as well, and they all offer something different, from the barn clearing power of the Thompson machine gun, to the brilliant sniping capabilites of the Lee Enfield scoped. The only thing that is bad about the different armies is the differing accents. The Canadian is abysmal, and sounds like a comical mix between every stereotype under the sun. The SAS chappies of the British legions are also very posh and have a hilariously awful Dick van Dykeness to them. The Polish are average, but their actions are very choreographed. The only good ones are the Americans, apart from one annoying weasel who seems to have been recycled from Tony Hawks Underground. Maybe Activision cutting corners there.
The gameplay is very good, when it works. The pointing and shooting method is accurate and feels amazingly satisfying when you manage to snipe someone without a scope, and similarly when you storm through forests to be confronted by 20 Germans, you can just wave it over everyone and hope to hit some. The tank controls with the Polish army need a lot of getting used to, as there is only one analogue stick intstead of two, but once you get the hang of it you'll be gunning down Panzers with glee. The sensitivity can be adjusted according to personal taste, and overall the controls work really well.
Unfortunately, while brilliant when it works, it is amazingly frustrating when it doesn't. During the big firefights, often at the beginning of each level or the defence near the end, the framerate drops horribly, which means that the controls don't have enough time to calibrate where your pointing, or even moving. Therefore, they lock up and prevent you from doing anything. This is ridiculous, as if you peek out to snipe someone and the controls lock up, you're gonna get hammered and die very quickly. It's immensely frustrating, and something that should not have been let through.
There are also some weird little gesture based bits, for instance planting explosives or grappling with German troops. They are plentiful, and all can be dealt with by just waggling like hell, not paying attention to the prompts at all.
The graphics do the job, nothing else. The camera angles are very dramatic, as are the set pieces (rowing across a river being bombed while trying to snipe people is fun), but up close the textures are blurry, and if a team mate gets shot you can lie down and wriggle inside them, seeing the hollow shell. Sometimes they even fall on you. Its bizzare, and lets the atmosphere down a bit.
Another disappointment is the multiplayer. Put simply, there isn't any. Not a bit. I can accept that at the time the Wii's online wasn't up and running, but to have no local multiplayer at all is just unnacceptable. This makes Call of Duty 3 exclusively a solo experience, which is kind of not the point given the fact you are part of a group of soldiers fighting for your lives.
Overall, while in 2006 it might have been a decent start to shooters on the Wii, in the cold hard light of 2010 it just doesn't stand up, especially with the far superior Modern Warfare and World at War also on the console, both sporting excellent online play. Initially it's thrilling, visceral fun, but it soon falls apart. Play through this one and you'll be fighting the controls as much as the Germans.
With that out the way, lets get started!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Call of Duty games have always been the premier WW2 shooters out there, even above the first few Medal of Honours. And as this is a WW2 shooter, the plot should be pretty obvious. You take control of a silent member of a loudmouth group of soldiers in 1940s France, trying to push the Germans out of the country. Obviously the only way to do this is to blow stuff up and kill everything with no regard for your own safety. You've gotta feel for these Germans some day.
That is the basic plot. The whole story revolves around you taking control of someone in one of four different armies (British, American, Canadian and Polish) and forcing the Germans back from four different view points. Each mission has a slightly different task to offer, although the easiest way to do it is to kill everyone in sight, then wander around trying to find the checkpoint. The armies all have slightly different weapons as well, and they all offer something different, from the barn clearing power of the Thompson machine gun, to the brilliant sniping capabilites of the Lee Enfield scoped. The only thing that is bad about the different armies is the differing accents. The Canadian is abysmal, and sounds like a comical mix between every stereotype under the sun. The SAS chappies of the British legions are also very posh and have a hilariously awful Dick van Dykeness to them. The Polish are average, but their actions are very choreographed. The only good ones are the Americans, apart from one annoying weasel who seems to have been recycled from Tony Hawks Underground. Maybe Activision cutting corners there.
The gameplay is very good, when it works. The pointing and shooting method is accurate and feels amazingly satisfying when you manage to snipe someone without a scope, and similarly when you storm through forests to be confronted by 20 Germans, you can just wave it over everyone and hope to hit some. The tank controls with the Polish army need a lot of getting used to, as there is only one analogue stick intstead of two, but once you get the hang of it you'll be gunning down Panzers with glee. The sensitivity can be adjusted according to personal taste, and overall the controls work really well.
Unfortunately, while brilliant when it works, it is amazingly frustrating when it doesn't. During the big firefights, often at the beginning of each level or the defence near the end, the framerate drops horribly, which means that the controls don't have enough time to calibrate where your pointing, or even moving. Therefore, they lock up and prevent you from doing anything. This is ridiculous, as if you peek out to snipe someone and the controls lock up, you're gonna get hammered and die very quickly. It's immensely frustrating, and something that should not have been let through.
There are also some weird little gesture based bits, for instance planting explosives or grappling with German troops. They are plentiful, and all can be dealt with by just waggling like hell, not paying attention to the prompts at all.
The graphics do the job, nothing else. The camera angles are very dramatic, as are the set pieces (rowing across a river being bombed while trying to snipe people is fun), but up close the textures are blurry, and if a team mate gets shot you can lie down and wriggle inside them, seeing the hollow shell. Sometimes they even fall on you. Its bizzare, and lets the atmosphere down a bit.
Another disappointment is the multiplayer. Put simply, there isn't any. Not a bit. I can accept that at the time the Wii's online wasn't up and running, but to have no local multiplayer at all is just unnacceptable. This makes Call of Duty 3 exclusively a solo experience, which is kind of not the point given the fact you are part of a group of soldiers fighting for your lives.
Overall, while in 2006 it might have been a decent start to shooters on the Wii, in the cold hard light of 2010 it just doesn't stand up, especially with the far superior Modern Warfare and World at War also on the console, both sporting excellent online play. Initially it's thrilling, visceral fun, but it soon falls apart. Play through this one and you'll be fighting the controls as much as the Germans.
