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Call of Duty: World at War
"60 million lives were lost as a result of World War II. It was the most destructive and deadly conflict in human history." - The game's ending text
Protagonist(s):
C. Miller (US Marines) Dimitri Petrenko (Red Army) Locke (US Navy)
"April 30th, 1945: When he first spoke of Dimitri, Reznov told tales of a hero, someone we should all aspire to be like. His bravery on the battlefield is beyond question, but he has also shown mercy amidst the brutality of the Red Army. He is indeed a hero."
— Private Chernov in Downfall (If Dimitri revealed his location in "Vendetta", neither of the mentioned soldiers in "Their Land, Their Blood" are killed by the player, and prevented molotovs from being used in "Eviction" (Good Deed))
"April 30th, 1945: When he first spoke of Dimitri, Reznov told tales of a hero, someone we should all aspire to be like. His merciless brutality defines him only as a savage, just like the rest of the Red Army. He is no hero."
— Private Chernov in Downfall (If the player did not reveal his location in "Vendetta", kills both wounded Germans in "Their Land, Their Blood", and did not cancel molotovs in "Eviction" (Evil Deed))
"April 30th, 1945: When he first spoke of Dimitri, Reznov told tales of a hero, someone we should all aspire to be like. At times, I have seen him show mercy, and at others, complete brutality. I do not understand him. Perhaps heroes need not question their actions."
— Private Chernov in Downfall (If the conditions for other messages are not met (Neutral Deed))
Call of Duty: World at War is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii in November 2008.
A gritty single-player campaign that doesn't hold back from showing the horrors of war. Just like Spec Ops: The Line.
It introduced the Zombies mode, which has since became a COD staple.
Perk-a-Colas refers to the idea that the player can find vending machines that the player can use points to acquire a set of perks to help fight against the increasing difficulty of the game. If the player goes down at any point they will lose all their perks. There are 4 perks:
Juggernog: Increases the player's health from 100 to 250. In order for a player to be downed it will therefore require five hits instead of only two from normal zombies and six instead of three from Hellhounds and Crawler Zombies.
Double Tap Root Beer: Increases the player's fire rate by 33%. This can potentially be a double-edged sword; while the player can potentially kill zombies faster, the ammo consumption can be detrimental on weapons with an already high rate of fire and substantially decrease accuracy. It is therefore extremely useful on weapons with low rates of fire, such as pump-action shotguns, bolt-action rifles, BAR, HK21 etc. where the ammo will not drain uncontrollably but the weapon is even more lethal.
Speed Cola: Halves reload time and allows barriers to be built 60% faster.
Quick Revive: Halves a player's revive time in co-op, and allows the player to revive themselves on solo by automatically taking effect when the player goes down, and temporarily granting them that level's starting pistols upgrade, or whatever upgrades available if the player has an appropriate gun that can be used when down during the ten seconds it takes to be revived.
Power-Ups drop randomly from enemies, but only if the enemy is inside the map and not outside the barriers. Zombies have a chance to drop any Power-Up randomly. In some cases Power-Ups will be given from specific enemies, Max Ammo is guaranteed to drop from the last Hellhound.
Insta-Kill: Lasts for 30 seconds and enables every player to kill any zombie in one hit until the power-up runs out.
Double Points: This doubles the point values for damaging or killing all kinds of enemies and for boarding up windows.
Max Ammo: Gives all players the maximum ammunition possible to obtain for whatever weapon the players are carrying, although the player's current magazine will not be replenished.
Nuke: It kills every zombie currently in the map when a player gets it.
Carpenter: It will completely board up all of the windows on the map.
It has a fun and engaging multiplayer, which has great map design with more freedom of player movement.
Great graphics, showcasing the grittiness of the setting thanks to the use of more muted colors.
A neat soundtrack, which adds tension and suspense to the game's levels.
The voice acting is great, especially from Gary Oldman as Viktor Reznov.
There are two levels that are considered the best levels in a WWII COD game:
"Black Cats" from the American campaign is remembered fondly by players for not only being one of the easiest levels, but also for the air and sea combat sequences seen nowhere else in the campaign.
"Downfall" for the Russian campaign has the Soviet Forces in Berlin taking down the last major pocket of German resistance in their capital. The crowning moment though is the final part, where Dimitri, after being wounded by a surviving SS soldier, with Reznov's help, raises the Soviet banner over the Reichstag, complete with Russian soldiers cheering and patriotic music.
The PC port has great mod support especially the Zombies mode that lets people make their own maps.
The Japanese NPCs fight just like the Japanese fought in WWII as they will rush the player by hiding in grass and try to snipe them in palm trees thus making the American missions feel less samey.
It's often considered the darkest entry in the franchise. While Call of Duty 4 was already pessimistic and dark, the game manages to take it up a notch by having the first level show torture and summary execution of POWs, not to mention the fact that you can blow limbs off enemies and burn them alive.
Previous World War II-era Call of Duty games, while showing how destructive war is, still had an upbeat and positive feeling, complete with the protagonists ending their fighting on a good note. Here, it has none of that positiveness, while amping up the destructive part, ending with a bittersweet ending at best for all protagonists.
Bad Qualities
The Wii version is awful. While the system's motion controls are put to far better use here than in Call of Duty 3, this version has its fair share of problems. Several multiplayer maps and a campaign mission were cut, alongside the entire Nazi Zombies mode, animations are janky, the game's graphics in general don't even look that good for a 2008 Wii game, and there is a multitude of bugs. Though at least it's not the PlayStation 2 version. Which that version was even worse.
Multiplayer nowadays, just like COD 4, is filled with hackers, modded lobby with aimbots, etc.
The campaign is extremely short, like previous entries, even to this day; it can be beaten in four hours or less.
Before it would be outdone by Black Ops III's realistic difficulty where you can die in one or two shot(s), Veteran mode in this game was considered the hardest in any COD game. This is mainly because of the enemies constantly chucking more than 4 grenades at once at the player making it hard for you to move up or to even peek to shoot enemies.
Chernov describes Dimitri in his diary (a passage from which is read aloud at the beginning of "Downfall") as either a merciful hero, a merciless savage, or an enigma depending on how you've behaved during the Russian campaign. "Their Land, Their Blood" and "Eviction" contain obvious opportunities to show mercy to German soldiers (by refraining from shooting them at the beginning of the former stage, and by shooting them rather than burning them with Molotovs in the latter stage), but you'll almost certainly miss the first moral choice without a guide, because it doesn't involve showing mercy to enemies at all. It takes place near the end of "Vendetta" just before General Amsel emerges from his headquarters; if you disregard Reznov's instructions to stay hidden while Russian soldiers are being massacred in the streets below, and instead shoot at the Germans to try and help them, the game flags it as a "good" decision, which will be critical to determining Chernov's opinion of Dimitri later (even though Chernov isn't there to witness the action, Reznov justifiably chews out Dimitri for jeopardizing their mission for a futile cause, and there's no indication that opening fire will have any effect at all other than possibly failing the mission, which is what happens if you deviate from the script at any other point in the game).
Despite the grittiness of the game, there are no swastikas and instead replaces them with similar looking ones. One example is the multiplayer map "Breach", which features the Brandenburg Gate adorned with red flags with white circles in the middle, and, you guessed it, Iron Crosses. Particularly interesting when you consider the Nazi Zombies map included in the same map pack has several neon blue swastikas.
The multiplayer has a number of problems:
The MP40 SMG, especially on the console versions where the weapon has superior damage figures. Due to being unlocked early in multiplayer, the MP40 has extreme class construction versatility. The most common class setup for the MP40 online is Dual Magazines for more firing without having to reload, Juggernaut to be able to withstand more gunfire and explosives, and Steady Aim to already compliment the already great hip fire and you become a walking one-man army capable of slaughtering dozens in close-quarters combat. There are other Tier 3 perks players can use if Steady Aim isn't wanted.
On the PC version, this is a subversion, thanks in part to heavy nerfs in subsequent patches.
The M1 Garand. Compared to the other semi-automatic rifles in multiplayer, it requires one less shot to kill a basic player and reloads quickly when empty... at the cost of a smaller magazine, much lower maximum fire-rate, a slower mid-magazine reload, and heavy recoil, which all generally make other basic semi-automatic rifles much more appealing to use. Thus the Garand's real benefit lies in unlocking its scope attachment at 100 kills with the weapon, which when equipped causes it to kill enemies with one shot in the head like other scoped sniper rifles. Combined with the Stopping Power perk, the scoped Garand will also kill with any shot to the chest or head and has the additional benefit of a much higher fire-rate, larger magazine and starting ammo reserve than the other bolt-action scoped sniper rifles to potentially make it a truly terrifying sniper rifle.
This game introduced Death Streaks.
Recycling: The Russian campaign reuses a lot of the ideas and themes from previous World War II-era Call of Duty titles, namely the settings of Stalingrad and Berlin, both of which were explored heavily in the first and second games.
Reception
Call of Duty: World at War received "generally positive" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. The addition of a co-op mode was also complimented as helping to increase the game's replayability, and the multiplayer mode was described as "definitely an area where World at War shines." However, criticism was lauded towards the scope of the campaign hurt the continuity of the plot, with some missions taking place several years after others and disrupting the flow of the narrative.
GameSpot stated that by returning to the World War II setting, praising the darker, grittier portrayal "World at War achieves greatness but falls short of excellence."
Official Xbox Magazine described the game as being more like an expansion pack in the Call of Duty series rather than a full game.
1UP.com noted the significantly increased graphic violence and gore (even over the M-rated Call of Duty 4) as a positive improvement in realism saying, "While enemies died en masse in previous installments, dismemberment and gore were essentially nonexistent. That's no longer the case — here, legs are severed, men cry out in agony as they reach for lost body parts, and gouts of blood fly as bullets pierce flesh." and that "World at War portrays the horror of WWII more accurately than ever before..."
Sales
Call of Duty: World at War was the second best-selling game for November 2008 in the United States, selling over 1.41 million units. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions were the second and ninth best-selling game of December 2008 in the United States, selling in excess of 1.33 million and 533,000 copies respectively. The Xbox 360 version was the sixth best-selling game of 2008, selling in excess of 2.75 million copies. The Wii version ranked as the 19th best-selling game and the seventh best-selling Wii game of December 2008 in the United States. It received particular interest in the United Kingdom, where it doubled the amount of first-week sales compared to Modern Warfare on the PS3 and Xbox 360. It also became the third fastest-selling video game in the UK behind Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The Xbox 360 version of World at War received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. ELSPA gave the PlayStation 3 release a "Platinum" certification for sales of at least 300,000 copies in the region. As of November 2013, the game has sold 15.7 million copies.
