Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (Xbox)

(Activision)

Not to be confused with the up and coming Xbox 360 Game Call of Duty 2 (Which of course we cannot wait for) Call of Duty 2: Big Red one follows the adventures of the US Marine 1st Infantry division known as ‘The Fighting First’  ‘The Fighting First was the first unit to reach England, the first to fight the enemy in North Africa and Sicily, the first on the beaches of Normandy in D-Day, and the first to take a German city. You’ll learn all this, and more, in black and white informational ‘Military Channel’ newsreels, that come off with the sort of bravado and inspirational tone of wartime propaganda.
Activision attempt to make the exploits of the ‘Fighting First’ a more personal experience by following an unnamed soldier (which of course you are controlling) through several campaigns through Germany, France, Belgium and Africa.  Your character interacts with a small squad of marines (Whos voice Talent originates from the American HBO Series Band of Brothers) who live and die together through these scenarios.

The single character campaign takes the form of rudimentary squad based combat, so you always have several guys watching your back for German shell shots.  However you have no control over these characters so more often than not you will find they can run in front of your line of fire, and unfortunately you cannot shoot them in the back of the head to show them the error of their ways, you simply have to reposition yourself which can be quite annoying.  The chatter provided by your squad really helps to set the scene of the game and adds a great deal to the realism, they scream when they get hit, tell you were fire is coming from and even shout abuse at the Nazis!
You follow your squad through varying and well designed environments, such as storming beaches, running though villages and defending bases.  The game generally follows a run to ‘here, kill this and run to there’ kind of slant, so in most missions you feel lead around the level quite a bit.  This is quite frustrating and will hurt the replay value of the game.
An addition to this version of Call of Duty is the use of vehicles.  In several scenarios you are either exclusively driving a particular vehicle (such as a tank) or have the opportunity to mount various vehicles during the scenario (such as a rear gunner for a jeep)  This adds a great deal of variety to the game and helps remove the ‘hand holding feeling of the game.
Your character has the ability to carry 2 weapons and grenade slots and can crouch and crawl for better accuracy.  Several weapons are available such as the sub machine gun and M1 Carbine, however I found it much simpler to carry your default weapon around with the target reticule on sniping enemies as they appear.
Enemy AI is pretty spot on with them ducking for cover and avoid nasties such as grenades, they also seem to have a simple damage assessment ability so that they will take more hits to drop if you shoot them in the legs or arms and a bullet to the head spells game over.
In these types of games its all about the action and immersiveness of the game right??? Well Call of Duty 2: Big Red One has it in spades.  You run around the levels genuinely a bit shell shocked.  Wether its from the planes exploding over head, the tank battles over the hill, the bullets whizzing past your head or the shells going off five feet from you (when they do you get disorientated, you ears start ringing and the screen gets distorted which is a great feature.)  Play the game in surround sound and I can guarantee you will have your flatmates ducking for cover!

The single player campaign is quite short and can be played out within a week with little option for replay.  The multiplayer action is of the Xbox Live variety, with modified multiplayer versions of the single player scenario maps available for players to engage in CTF, Deathmatch, and the other popular match types. You can’t play multiplayer on the same console, though, with only Xbox Live support, and no split-screen capability, although you could link up with other systems.

Overall the game is an immersive, accurate and fantastic representation of World War II action, sadly let down by rail roaded gameplay and a short single player campaign.  Its worth a weekend rental.

Graphics: 4/5 – An Immersive, detailed and intense representation of WWII.
Sound: 4/5 – Excellent use of Surround Sound and very realistic
Gameplay: 3/5 – Great the first time around.
Longevity: 1/5 – Once complete you’re probably not going to play it again.
Overall: 3/5 – Great, realistic game, unfortunately your only going to play it once.

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