 "Revisionist Review" | 2009-08-10 |
| - Reviewed By webbbarton |
Warning: This review is revisionistic. That means that the review is versus the state-of-the-art as of today, August 10, 2009.
Call of Duty 3 was a PS3 release title. A version was also released on PS2 and XBox 360. Clearly it was not designed exclusively for the PS3. It is not as good as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare or Call of Duty: World At War. These titles were developed with the benefit of hindsight about Call of Duty 3.
COD3 does not have an open world. But neither does COD4 or CODWAW, though in the latter cases there are more open areas than COD3.
COD3 is not designed to be realistic. Realistic combat is relatively boring, broken up by moments of terror and relief. In order to complete some of the levels in COD3 you have to annihilate a battalion of Germans personally. This is absurd from a realistic point of view. The game is fun! I died a lot though. I have been playing games for 2 decades so I feel qualified to say that much of the gameplay is in trying this and getting killed and trying that and getting killed until you put it all together. But it IS fun! To me the game feels more 'arcade-like' and less realistic. I don't think realistic combat would be too much fun. Hours in a foxhole. Many soldiers never saw a single enemy the whole war, except as prisoners. People don't jump out of cover in real life, and yes, I am aware the Japanese had the Banzai charge and the Russian conscripts made senselessly bloody human wave attacks, but they don't really work on a WW II or later battlefield (they didn't really work in WW I either). I predict there will be NO realistic WW II First Person Shooters ever made.
More realistic missions for a European WW II battlefield are more fights for river lines and for observation posts where an FO can call down Artillery and Air support - and I understand that in an FPS its more fun to do some shooting than it is to make radio calls and hike around avoiding ambushes, or getting shot at by unseen enemies, that you never see at all. Don't get me wrong, there were meeting engagements and firefights at close quarters, prisoner taking patrols, for certain. Infantry withstood lots of shelling, and had no targets, they had to advance to defensive points and listening posts. People aren't as bad shots as the enemy AI. If you can be seen you can be shot and killed. The enemy has snipers, too. Keep in mind that because of overwhelming Allied air superiority the Germans did not even move except under cover of overcast or darkness! Ok, there were some exceptions, but in virtually every case Allied airpower brought any advance or counterattack to an immediate halt with heavy German losses.
Ok, so, I went through all that to say BUT this IS a FUN game! Woo hoo! you drive tanks and jeeps and fire mortars and bazookas and the sound is pretty good on a surround system, and you get into the story line, and the strategic premise behind the battles was real (Falaise Pocket) and the terrain looks awesome and the guns are all a little bit different. But it is not as much fun as CODWOW or COD4. Great collector's item! |
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 "COD 2 and 4 much better" | 2009-07-17 |
| - Reviewed By User: A179ZYFOR9PS9I |
| I enjoy the series, but this game feels like a drag compared to 2 and 4. I have a feeling this was designed for 360 and the port left something to be desired. I would like to be able to customize the controls- I like the button layout better on the 360 version of COD2 so if you have both consoles you might choose it. I replay the others and don't bother with this one. |
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| "It's No COD4, But It's Still Pretty Good!" | 2009-07-04 |
| - Reviewed By the_beaz |
If you're just getting into the COD series on your PS3, then I recommend you play COD3 BEFORE playing COD4...If you play 4 before 3 like I did, then you'll probably feel some degree of a letdown with COD3...It's just not as good of a game as COD4.
With that said, COD3 still has a great deal going for it. There are a variety of missions & weaponry and you just can't go wrong when you're shooting up Nazis in WWII. However, if you're a ONE CLEAN HEADSHOT kind of shooter, then you're going to be sorely disappointed with this one! While there are spots when you put your sniping skills to use, the majority of combat is either in trenches, partially destroyed French homes or across fields when you're storming a German position. And you can literally shoot 20 shots sometimes before a guy falls, depending on the weapon and firing distance.
One thing that really irked me was how you take ferocious blasts from fixed machine gun positions, but then once you take one out and assume control of the gun, THERE'S NOBODY LEFT TO SHOOT!! So you take down an MG42 Gunner and just get to shoot up the French Countryside and maybe a couple of random vehicles before moving on. While this seems to make sense on the surface (you take the defensive position AFTER you've taken the ground, hence no bad guys left to shoot), wouldn't it be more accurate to think that these positions would have MG42s placed around a perimeter or in more than one side of a house? After all, the French learned what a tragic mistake a single fortifed line of defense can be with their Maginot Line.
Since this game doesn't give you advanced weaponry that obviously didn't exist in 1944, it would've been much sweeter to mow down retreating Nazis with their own MG42s...I can only remember 2 times you get to use one of the fixed MGs and once when you can pick one up and briefly use it. Just know that when you're using the fixed gun you can and will take heavy fire and frequently have to back off and relinquish the gun unless you want to start the checkpoint over. Which is another thing...Sometimes the checkpoint saves are quite LONG. So you can move through a good chunk of territory, make a single mistake and end up going back to the start of that area. This isn't really unusual in a video game, just somewhat annoying.
This game is very unforgiving if you decide to sit back and get into a stationary shootout with your enemies...They will respawn and respawn until you get up and lead your squad forward. And you DO have to lead them forward most of the time since the AI can be downright stupid, even hilarious. It's stupid when they block you from getting around in tight quarters or when they jump right in front of your firing weapon...But it's even funny when you're taking a trench and you're behind cover trying to shoot the trench free and your guys just come charging into it right past you and get filled with lead, one by one, a half-dozen by a half-dozen...The bodies literally start piling up right in front of you.
There are 2 other "control type" issues I had with this game. First, you have to ROTATE -- Repeat -- ROTATE the L and R joysticks to direct mortar fire...It's not as simple as just pushing the sticks in the desired direction like in 99.9% of other instances when you use the sticks. This failure of mine to read ROTATE in the correct way led to a 2 month delay in me completing this game. I kept getting into the trench where you first use the mortar to CLEAR THE ROAD and I kept shooting rounds into the trees and on the hill wondering WHY it was so hard to direct the fire. Pretty soon a Nazi would jump into the trench and I'd have to start the level again...And again...And again, until I just quit this one and played through some other games before returning to it.
I also had trouble getting the jeep to drive in reverse. There are a couple of spots where you take over the jeep and have very little room to turn around just driving forward. Drive it into blockage and you're STUCK! Oddly enough I changed the view to overhead and was able to back up...But in first person view I just couldn't get it to back up. It really sucked being stuck up next to a fence or house while trying to turn around...
I also MISSED THE FINAL CUT SCENE after fighting through the entire game! I had no idea I was at the end of the game after blowing up the advancing tanks and was going to pause the game to take a break...I pushed the start button when the scene started playing and BAM!, the credits started rolling. It would've been nice to see the final scene and maybe I can restart the checkpoint if the game lets me...But if not, I'll get over it. That's just one more thing that kept adding up to a gaming experience the ended up being inferior to COD4. |
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| "Great Single Player... Online Lacking..." | 2009-05-15 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2R88VYKDBZFOZ |
| Buy this game for the campaign mode.. It's great for the price... Don't buy this game for the online multiplayer mode... It's glitchy and just not very involved... |
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| "poor graphics" | 2009-05-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: A108C0UDUHU92Z |
| the game is good and enjoyble but the graphics are poor it you're looking for eyecandy you'll dessapointed |
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 " awesome fun" | 2009-03-16 |
| - Reviewed By User: A15LG7HS4WKKKS |
| generally this game i use for online purposes and boy is it good for that. i had never liked a fps before. i was bought this so i played it and i loved it. i have only done 2/3 missions because i find online so much more fun. the game really should have voice chat features though but none the less an incredible game. |
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