Short answer? No.
Long answer? No.
I'll start by reviewing the single player campaign. If I have to describe the single player with one word, it will have to be this: "DULL".
My god, the single player is truly awful, average and dull. The gameplay is boring, the story line is almost non existent and at times, the campaign can be as annoying as hell. The game is also not balanced with parts of the campaign being too easy while other choke points are pure trial and errors (ie. die, try again, die, try again, die try again etc). The problem is that often you do not know who and where the bullets or grenades are coming from and its difficult to tell who is ally and who is foul. This problem existed in COD4 single player campaign and its downright pure arrogance that they didn't fix this because they were too busy trying to 1up Infinity Ward. In fact, there are MANY COD4 flaws that aren't fixed in this game but more on that later.
The shortness of the campaign is actually a blessing because by the time you tried 2 or 3 missions, you would be so bored, you want to move on to multi player. Its safe to say that the multi player is the meat and body of the whole game but nevertheless this does not mean this somehow legitimates a sub par single player campaign. Actually, who am I kidding. The campaign is boring but the shortness of the campaign is not a positive. Its a point deductor. Period.
The whole Japanese/ East China Sea, Pacific Island World war 2 setting is a nice change from the previous COD campaigns. Unfortunately for Treyarch, this is not a positive point either. The whole Pacific warfare campaign is a turn off and the whole setting just screams BORING all the time. If it weren't for the Russian-German campaign and the Nazi zombie mode, I wouldn't have finished the single player! That being said, the Russian-German story mode is also not that fun to play with, although the East German/ Poland/ Russia setting makes for great multi player maps.
The music, voice overs and soundtrack do not stand out. In fact, they are often times annoying and do not immerse the player into the story. Rather than trying to immerse the player, they actually ANNOY the player. I swear, if I hear the word "Banzai!" again, I'll throw that Blu Ray disc against the wall! Don't worry people, its Blu Ray. It can take a beating (though I'm not responsible for any stupidity on your part).
All in all, the single player is a sub par experience with a short campaign thats also boring and I would not rate it higher than a 7. That being said, lets move on to the real meat and body of the game.
The multi player mode. Ah where to start. The multi player is as you would expect and its almost identical as COD4s multi player so people feel right at home jumping in. There are more perks, tweaks have been made and different weapons. I say different because most of the weapons really don't feel much better than COD4s. Most of the weapons feel ineffective. And they just don't have that awesomeness feel like some of the weapons in COD4 had. Although I admit, the flamethrower seem pretty neat.
The game uses the same engine as COD4 and retains the same kind of gameplay as COD4. This is, of course, a positive, seeing how well COD4 played.
Unfortunately, the gameplay is not the only thing thats similar as COD4. Because so are the BUGS and the ANNOYANCES. For example, everyone knows the high grass in COD4 are mediocre 2D grass models (downright terrible vegetation models and other small object models). Vegetation in World at war is equally mediocre. I mean c'mon this is 2008 here. People overlooked it back in 2007 because COD4 was so fun to play with but you would think that after a whole year and with 2-3 years of development time, they would have at least fixed this. Well guess what, they didnt. Other examples, includes shadows of objects (Treyarch: "whats anti-aliasing?"), dropping into games and the game ends 10 seconds later, spawning right into dog attack or artillery, characters walking right into walls etc.
Here is the thing however. Its 2008 and almost 2009. There are TONS of Triple A titles out there. We don't have to settle for average mediocrity here. COD4 came out over a year ago. Treyarch had a whole year extra to improve the engine. Now if this is what they come up with, than its downright arrogance and ignorance of their part. If you think a game will get points for this, you're out of your mind.
Mediocre 2d models aren't the only things that pissed me off. Often the controls are clunky and the "I see the enemy, I'm trying to back down and hide slowly, unfortunately some object is blocking my way and can't move and got shot down because I cant see what is blocking my path" annoyances- returns. What Treyarch should have done, is spend time thinking and fixing all these annoying issues. Instead they devoted all their time into thinking how to 1up Infinity Ward (which clearly in their minds meant the art style).
The maps are a plus and a minus at the same time. You will love some maps but HATE plenty of others. To me, the Pacific Island settings, and the whole Japanese palace & courtyard maps are a huge turn off with the exception of 'Cliff side'. Those settings are nice, if you want to book a 2 week vacation! The maps are terrible for multi player. Most of these maps are not fun to play with and are extremely confusing. They tried to make the maps complicated and deep but ended up making the maps TOO COMPLICATED. Often, most maps feel like a maze and they are huge maps as well. And because there are so many details around every corner, its just too complicated to play. The East German maps, however, have that "urban feeling" and comes very close to the COD4 feeling. Those maps are quite enjoyable and fresh. Unfortunately, the same annoying fact in COD4 with the maps returns in this game. If you only play a few modes, expect to play in the same mediocre maps all the time while the really good maps only pop up once every red moon. Yes, every time you join a game, its almost always THAT mediocre map that you don't like. This is an extremely annoying thing in COD4. But it returns in World at war. I'm my opinion, its pure arrogance and laziness that they didn't even bother trying to fix this. Huge turn off.
The art style is perhaps the best thing in this game. Clearly Treyarch spend most of their time in this area trying to 1up Infinity Ward. Many maps (IMO especially the German location ones) have beautiful art styles and offer different ways to play. Plenty of places for close quarter combat while some of the maps are huge with many places to hide. The lighting on some of the maps are beautiful but not something that we haven't seen before.
Its hard to pinpoint exactly whats wrong with this game and why it is not COD4. Another point that pissed me off, is the artillery fire. The artillery fire is annoying as hell. Every time its used, you hear this really (and I mean REALLY) annoying tune. This tune is so annoying, it gets to you, you know. It gets stuck in your head and you downright curse everytime you hear the tune. Also, artillery strike also influences characters on screen. Even if you aren't hit by it, your character become uncontrollable like as if someone just threw flash grenade. Its annoying and you end up being a sitting duck. Its a huge turn off.
Since I'm talking about artillery here, I might as well mention the dog attack. They replaced the chopper with the dog attack which from what I can tell is equally effective. Dog attacks are quite annoying and overpowered if you ask me. Annoying because you dont know where the dogs are coming from. All you hear are dogs barking and someone warns you in the beginning if you are close by. You cannot see dogs in the radar. They are overpowered because two hits from 1 dog will kill you and because they are hard to hit. Overpowered also because the load is not even. Sometimes you hear dogs, you encounter none while other times, you had to fend off 5 of them at once. Overpowered clearly because I called dogs once, and the dogs killed 8 times for me (granting me another dog attack). While I was hunting on my own. Like I said, its overpowered.
The same problem exists with some of the weapons. Some weapons are easy to handle and easy to use. Others are downright hard to aim, take 100 bullets to kill and are hard to play with. Maybe its me, but the balance seems missing.
The vehicle combat offer nothing special and is not exactly fun to play. What I noticed from my own experience with the game is that by including it in certain maps, one of the two things happen: the balance of power either shifts completely to one side or the fast intense action we have come to love so much, slows down considerably. These are not positive points in case you were wondering.
To come to a conclusion, COD World at war is a fun multi player game. If you loved COD4, you will like World at war. Unfortunately Treyarch has spent too much time in the wrong areas of the game while not fixing the many things that should have been fixed. I don't know what they were thinking but in 2008, with so many Triple A games, that is unacceptable.
The tweaks they DID made, are not as fun as the simpler COD4. Furthermore, a lot of maps are not fun to play with because either the setting is a turn off or are too complicated, somewhat maze like feeling. They all look pretty though but 40 thousand oil drums, little rocks, snake formed spiraling corners, high walls, it just feels a little too big for a 6v6 or a 12v12 battle.
And oh yea, 150 kills with 2 guns achieved. So where's my freakin' blue/ red print? There aren't any paint jobs for guns as far as I can tell. This will also be a turn off for many COD4 fans. Let's just hope the golden guns make a return because I already have 200 head shots.
Closing comments: while the multi player is fun, its not as good as COD4.
Final score multi player: 8
Huzaifa from eXputer: "2008 was home to the likes of Call of Duty: World at War, Dead Space, GTA 4, Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, and many other hits, which is outright remarkable."
Here here
Those that were around before 2000's i am sure are like me that think we entered a world of non readers or those that follow without question.
I can not wait to see fallout 3 a goty game even though it was about water with non content until you add the dlc/updates then you got the performance/crashing
1998 - the best year in gaming! Metal gear solid, crash bandicoot 3, medievil, half life, ocarina of time, thief, tenchu, resident evil 2, Spyro, tomb raider 3, oddworld abes exodus, banjo kazooie.
It was a different breed of a gaming era. You’ll never understand what it was like back then. The aura of gaming, it was different!
I second this. Gaming was a lot more varied and fun than it is today. I'm 35 so getting on compared to some here but I got to see all the changes from NES up to now but I've never felt so disappointed in any generation than I have this current gen. I was expecting more from this generation rather than prettier versions of games that came before it. Game mechanics have become so refined that alot of games feel the same and has done for a while now.
Maybe it's time to have a break for a while. I love gaming but I don't feel I get much fun in the traditional sense out of it anymore.
Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, Abe’s Exodus, and Ocarina of Time are the only things from that list that I liked.
Here’s the 2023 game releases that I personally liked… and big releases that I didn’t care for:
- Dead Space Remake
- Wo Long Dynatsy
- Resident Evil 4 Remake
- Diablo 4
- Fire Emblem Engage
- Hogwarts Legcay
- Street Fighter 6
- Hi-Fi Rush
- Like a Dragon: Ishin
- Octopath Traveler 2
- Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters
- Final Fanatsy XVI (actually ended up not liking this, but it was still a big deal release)
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
- Lies of P
- Mortal Kombat 1
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Starfield (Ended up hating this one, but big release)
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder
- Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (I’m an old-school Zelda fan, but didn’t really enjoy this game)
- Alan Wake 2
I mean, honestly I’ve never seen a year of major IP releases like that, ever.
Isn't it just a generational thing realistically.
I've been gaming since way back and I some of my favourite games go as far back as the late 80s for me each generation has a year or two of game changing releases one after another before an inevitable dry spell.
I kind of agree gaming had a different feel games hit different because we didn't have the internet nothing got spoiled and you really had to put in the effort to beat a puzzle which could set entire groups of people looking for a solution. But most importantly games were experimental and not as cookie cutter as today even basics like controls were not universal today r2 is shoot l2 is ads garunteed you can't deviate from that in a shooter back then it could of been square, R1 or R1 and circle nothing was standard.
But as time moves on a new generation picks up their controller they are going to be interested in different things that PS1 demo disc with the t Rex blew our primitive 16 bit brains back on launch but to kids today it's laughable.
The new gen of kids coming into to hobby seem to value different things to us there seems to be a huge focus on online play, streamers, gaming personalities, and social experiences, convience of digital downloads. To me I value none of that but that's ok like my parents not liking the band's I would listen to its just the natural cycle.
Just about every year in the 7th generation was great and something we most likely won't experience again.
2009 for example had Assassin's Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age: Origins, Uncharted 2, Halo 3: ODST, Killzone 2, Borderlands, Bayonetta, and Demon's Souls to name a few.
It still amazes me we got over 7 rockstar games ps2/ps3 but 3 for the ps3/ps4/ps5
Dragon age 1-3 and mass effect 1-3 in 7ish years what a generation.
A very devoted fan of Call of Duty: World at War racks up incredible in-game stats while playing regularly for the past 15 years.
Actually it is very easy to up the number of hours you have been playing a game. Basically all you need to do (assuming you have a PS4 or 5) is to place the console into stand-by without exiting the game, so if you do this a one hour gameplay actually becomes a 24 gameplay or longer.
There's someone on my friend list that has more than 6200 hours on Uncharted 4.
7k hours over 15 years isn't that crazy. The fact that he's been playing the same game for 15 years is more impressive.
Nailed what is the Spectrum... For good and bad, Quality or Quantity..Or the unreasonable to reason for. ;)
Of course you will hit a ridiculous stat after 15 of anything.
My main character for Everquest had over 500 days played in the first 6 years of the game. I was young then and had a lot of time on my hands. I don’t think I could duplicate that again until I retire and not sure I could match it if I tried.
500 days in 6 years is nothing lol, you do realise how many days in a year right ?
I might be getting the maths wrong here, I think 500 days in 6 years works out at an average of just over 6 hours every single day. For 6 years. That’s pretty serious
Edit: wrote this early this morning, I understand it's lots of hours now lol at myself 😂🤣😜
Andrew says: "The intrinsic values of COD are the following: memorable campaigns, meticulous multiplayer marathons, and lobbies populated by screaming 12-year-old kids that think puberty is the evolved form of Jigglypuff."
Jeez, the piece is already a professionally written piece. But fine, Ill edit some words. I think you are a whine baby though. Maybe a COD fanboy who got hurt because I said the game is boring...
never write another one ever!
I disagree with this review. I've been on this game a hell of a lot since buying it on friday, I find this a lot more enjoyable than COD4, the maps are better I think, there is plenty of cover and the style of the maps are brilliant (I know you stated this as well).
I dunno where you got DULL campaign mode from, I'm only level 5 I think and I've enjoyed every minute of it especially the Vendetta mission, when the music kicked it I thought that was a better experience than the 'All Ghillied Up' mission on COD4 which I thought was amazing.
I just find this so much better than COD4, apart from the lag which is affecting the PS3 version at the moment, hope thats to be fixed soon though.
TBH I thought this game wouldn't be very good as Treyarch last COD, (Call of Duty 3) was terrible, I thought this would be the same, but after having played this I'd give it a 9, not perfect but a hell of a lot of fun.
The campaign is not the best ever I'll agree to that but I do not think its dull, I haven't played it all yet so I may change my view on that but I have enjoyed every minute so far, just done 'Their Live, And Their Blood' mission which I thought was really good. Best so far is 'Vendetta' though, awesome level.
I like the maps (except Dome, small and crazy), but maps like Roundhouse espiecially (my fav map so far) I like because they seem to be more 'filled in' so to speak. Looking at the maps from COD4 they are quite bland in colour and texture and some of them are way to open. COD5 maps are more enclosed, some maps espiecially its like a 'you never know whats coming round the corner' map therefore you have to watch where you go, being more tactical. I think this is better than just running in and shooting everything in site. Its harder as well to spot people which is good as snipers are not as easy to find.
I have loads of RPG's so yeh I know a good story :).
I haven't had the chance to go on Zombie Mode yet so don't really have a view on that.
8.5 though is a good score for it I'll agree with that, personally I'd rate this better than COD4 though. 9/10