Pros: Multiple perspectives (including Canada and Poland), aggressive AI, online multiplayer is solid, beautiful graphics.
Cons: Some lag during online play, single player campaign relatively short, repetitive audio.
The Bottom Line: Call of Duty 3 for Xbox is a powerful game on an aging system. With an interesting campaign, extraordinary graphics, and online play, Call of Duty 3 is a surprise.
billy159401's Full Review: Call of Duty 3 for Xbox
First Player Shooter (FPS) fans are in for a special treat as the Call of Duty series returns to the stage with an improved overall quality and some other minor changes. Although this may seem to seem contradictory...it isn’t. So why should you buy a game that has only minor changes compared to its predecessor? Call of Duty 3’s minor changes are enough to grab attention from FPS fans because they add whipped cream to the ice cream.
Storyline
Call of Duty 3 for Xbox takes players back to World War II and the Normandy Breakout. It is up to the you to liberate Paris and surrounding areas! Primarily a shooting game, be prepared to target and hunt down enemies in this intense first person shooter.
Gameplay
Focused primarily on the Normandy Breakout, players go through 14 single player missions that takes place over 88 days – the time period leading up to the liberation of Paris. Players may choose between playing four different factions – Americans, British, Canadians, and Polish. This struck me as a very interesting choice of perspectives because countries such as Canada and Poland are rarely seen in the games that utilize the World War II story as a backdrop. The entire campaign can be completely in a relatively short amount of time in normal mode (it took me about 3 – 4 days). In the harder modes, players can challenge themselves and really get the bang from their bucks as the campaign takes significantly longer to complete.
Between each of the single player missions, cut scenes link the story together. I found these cut scenes to be graphically realistic and well scripted. However, the game does not allow players to skip these cut scenes so it becomes a nuisance after a while. Call of Duty 3 developers definitely wanted to pound the storyline home.
The overall feel in Call of Duty 3 is very similar to those of previous versions. The game is presented in first person perspective and players load up an array of weapons. After picking out targets, players get to kill or be killed. A new feature that was introduced to spice things up was action events. Action events are a series of button combinations that players are required to perform if they wish to complete usually boring tasks such as aiming a missile or throwing a grenade. These got very interesting during face-to-face confrontations with the enemy. When you’re life is on the line, you know you have to hurry. I like the overall idea of action events because it forces players to feel the tension and yet, at the same time, encourage players to remain calm in order to succeed. Call of Duty 3 draws a direct parallel to real wartime experiences in this regard – as soldiers fight for survival, they must remain calm to achieve the final victory.
The interface and mechanics of Call of Duty 3 remain virtually unchanged from the previous version. The familiar auto aim feature (when players use the left trigger to look down the sight of a gun) and the recovery system are back. The recovery system allows wounded soldiers to heal their damage if they rest behind cover for a few seconds. This feature made battles much more interesting. I found that this wasn’t so much of an advantage as I first thought because the AI is completely capable of performing this as well. Balanced and fair, this system adds to the overall fun of Call of Duty 3.
Speaking of the AI, I found the computer generated enemies and allies to be smart, challenging, and aggressive. AI controlled players change up fighting strategies often and use their weapons effectively. However, one problem I did face fairly often was the AI controlled ally suddenly appearing in my line of fire or my tossed grenade’s path. Suddenly, they would be killed instead of the enemy! That was slightly irritating.
Controls
I found the controls in Call of Duty 3 to be fairly intuitive. The more advanced controls are clearly explained in the included game manual. I estimate the learning curve for the controls to be about half an hour. The overall action events aren’t extremely difficult to learn.
Graphics
This area was at once stunning and expected. From an experienced franchise, I knew that I could count on pleasing eye candy. But, what I got were loads of special effects. With the glow, lighting, and shadows the entire experience was very realistic. Soldiers in game appeared, quite frankly, human. Movements seemed natural and sophisticated.
The graphics are done especially well considering that this was made for Xbox. Whatever people’s opinions on newer systems are, it is simply undeniable that the newer Xbox 360 simply possesses more processing power and graphics rendering capabilities.
Audio
The music is acceptable and nothing extraordinary. I found the battle cries and the soldier’s talking to be interesting at first, but they became repetitive after long periods of play. I was quite thankful the developers included Poland as a playable faction, because at least the soldier’s spoke something with an accent, which was quite interesting.
Online Multiplayer
Xbox Live is enabled with Call of Duty 3. Players can join games up to 16 players and fight all fight in modes such as deathmatch, team battle, capture the flag, headquarters, and War mode. These standard modes are pretty intuitive and easy to figure out.
Players can choose to change classes after every time they die. While stats are recorded, note that there is no leveling system (experience gaining) online. However, the many weapons and vehicles that are offered provide enough to be entertaining.
I experienced only slight lag problems while playing online with Xbox Live. I expect that this problem will generally not be fixed unless the server volume changes significantly, which is unlikely.
Final Thoughts
Call of Duty 3 is an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, upgrade from its previous versions. With an enhanced AI, new weapons and vehicles, and new features, it will be sure to catch your attention even if you’re only slightly interested in FPS games. Although the offline single player is relatively short in normal mode, players can play for extended periods of time on harder modes. The mode choices offered online are also interesting and worthy of attention.
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