I’ve had mixed feelings about this game from the get-go. Everyone knows that Treyarch is doing the sequel to Infinity Ward’s masterpiece of online fragfests, and that they’ve reverted back to World War II, which has been done so many times before.

I assumed (incorrectly) that the game engine were to be from COD 3 in this new game, with the ideals of COD 4. Instead, Treyarch in a brilliant and lazy move simply used the exact same game engine, albeit tweaked. This is of course, a great move. So right after you fire up this Beta, you’re treated to familiar controls and HUD. You’re also treated to graphics that are even better than COD 4, with gruesome explosive effects on your team mates.

More ranting after the break.

Instead of describing
everything about the game in general, I’m going to explain the
differences from this game and COD 4, which to me, are almost all good:

Key difference number 1: The setting is back to WW II.
I’m
still not sure if I like the old setting of old tanks and old
guns, but after some soul-searching I figured it’s not really such a
bad idea. Considering the fact that this game is nearly identical to
the last one, if the setting were still in the modern or near-future
era it would really seem like a tacked-on sequel.

2: The guns are very unique to each other, with unique unlocks.
The
guns are personally growing on me. I’m not a gun nut to any degree so
almost none of these in this game are recognizable; the unlocks are
varied between all of the guns per class to freshen up your arsenal.

For
example, only a few rifles in the rifle class are semi-automatic, and
others in the same class only have the grenade launcher (noob toob)
attachment, which are also forced to become unlocked. I have an issue
with this, but bear with me.

There are a bunch of altered and
new perks, ranging to reducing explosive damage versus Juggernaut’s
extended overall health. They’re perks defending against Flares (a
lasting distraction to the eyes, even at a long distance), or Talbum
Gas (basically a longer-lasting stun grenade).

You are allowed
1 vehicle perk for tanks, which are basic. It’s difficult to say how
much of a factor they are, since there’s only 1 map to play with tanks
on.

3: The game modes have excellent variety now.
Even
in the beta, I’m surprised at the variety between Capture The Flag,
War, Deathmatch and Search And Destroy. According to the leaderboard
system most of these modes will all have a hardcore mode to them as
well.

4: War mode: Sweet
Although some people
write-off this mode as “another headquarters” (cough), this mode is
quite fun to me, for not being a hardcore mode (yet). The premise is
simple: You push to capture a single point, and if one team succeeds,
the next point pushes toward the enemy’s base. If you push all the way
to their base, you succeed.

What makes this mode so
interesting is the “momentum” gain from killing the other team. A
bar fills from each kill one team obtains, and double or triples the
capture rate of a given point. If you push the enemy back twice after
building a “X3″ momentum but lose the last point, you lose that
momentum and have to start over; the enemy builds their own momentum and starts pushing back.

It
manages to make the 6 on 6 battles more into a battlefield than other
modes, and is a blast when you have 2 good teams fighting each other. I
can only imagine what Hardcore War will bring…

4: The squad system
Most
of the players on the beta don’t really care, but the squad system is a
great idea for team work. If you join a room with your friends you’re
automatically a part of “able squad”, which is default. But by pressing
start at anytime during a match you can create your own squad and
invite others on your team. The squad leader can place a marker on the
HUD or full map (accessed by pressing up on the D pad), to indicate a
point of interest, such as a downed bomb in Search And Destroy.

5: Second Chance
Confusing
at first, the 2nd Chance perk is both the Last Stand perk, and one that
allows team mates to revive downed players on the ground. BOTH players
in a given scenario have to have this perk for it to work, but when one
player is downed with regular gunfire, a white arrow appears for the
other player to try to revive him before the 30 seconds are up.

It’s
basically a rip off of Gears of War, but it works really well in Search
And Destroy to create some tense moments. Throwing a smoke grenade to
create cover to allow you to run up on a downed buddy, or allowing a
downed opponent to live to snipe his pal trying to help him really adds
to the experience.

If you’re playing and you are wondering
what’s wrong with Second Chance, note that if you are in water, shot in
the head or blown up, the perk does not work.

6: Bouncing Betty’s
These
take some getting used to from COD 4. While they are a bit easier to
shoot when you DO spot them, they are otherwise far deadlier than
claymores; the area of effect is circular and they are set off from a
short distance, usually regardless of walls. This makes for some
surprising traps, and even more of a necessity to use the Bomb Squad
perk.

7: Team killers begone! Hello other type of asshole!
I’ve
bitched as much as anyone about people blowing up their whole team
round after round in COD4, in hardcore modes. People everywhere have
come up with solutions that may sound good, but it doesn’t  prevent
douche bags from ruining other people’s fun.

Treyarch’s solution
is a happy medium from what we’ve seen in COD 4, and Halo 3. As much as
a voting or “kick solution” seems to be a good idea, trust me, they
don’t work.

Simply, if you team kill too much (a formula I
haven’t deduced, but it involves weather or not you’ve actually gotten
kills before you waste team mates), you’re thrown out. Not only that,
but the announcer says so, which is a nice touch. Also, the player that
is team killed last before the asshole is booted is allowed to live,
which is a brilliant move.

Basically, if you pull out a RPG to
vent your anger toward your shitty life, you’ll kill 1 or 2 guys on
your team and the action continues. It’s not any kind of solution to
people being retarded online, but it’s 10 times better than what you’ve
dealt with in the past. I should note that on my 12 hours on the beta,
no one’s been booted by accident by my count.

With such a nice
solution to COD 4′s idiocy of allowing players to constantly ruin your
experience, I’ve unfortunately encountered something yesterday that I
hope is not to be a trend: In a SnD match, 3 players on my team simply
hid in a cave, doing the usual “teabag” and shooting randomly. After
the opposing team plants the bomb at A, they all run to B and start
humping the defend point until the round ends.

It seemed to say to me: “OK, they thought of this, so now how do I be pointlessly annoying this time around?”

8: Tightened leaderboards
So
far, even in beta, COD 5 has a much better means of insulting
players for having no life. A quick glance of the leaderboards shows
everyone on your friends list, based not only on overall time and kill
counts, but also by what they play. If you check out my gamertag you’ll
notice in no time that most of my fragging is done on SnD, but a buddy
of mine spends all day shooting players on Capture the Flag.

9: Mortar Strikes and Dogs
The
usual rewards associated with 3, 5 and 7 kill streaks are once again in
order for Call of Duty. Changes with the mortar strike (airstrike) are
the constant barrage of mortars versus the relatively brief carpet
bombs of before. What this means is it’s more of a use of forcing an
area of the map off-limits for 15-20 seconds, rather than a quick
couple of kills.

The dogs unleashed after 7 kills are
devastating compared to the helicopter, despite you being able to
defend yourself better. Enemies are forced to shoot at other objects
lunging at their throats rather than the enemy, which is a massive
distraction and a huge game-turner. Note that dogs are vulnerable to
talbum gas (stun grenades basically), and are easily killed with
well-timed knife strikes.

9: It’s probably just for the beta version but…
…After
a match started with terrible lag that lasted 45 seconds or so, the
match ended like COD 4 would; the difference being that the message
didn’t just say “host ended game”, but said, and I quote: Game Ended: Localized MP Host Sucks. Not really worth pointing out, but still funny as hell.

10: The noob tube.
Most
everyone I talk to thinks that unlocking the noob tube on certain
weapons (some require 150 kills with said weapon) is a good thing; I
disagree.

The noob tube is, and has been, an honest weapon that
is no less a good perk than C4 or Claymore/Betty’s. In this version,
you can clearly see it’s travel path and is in fact slower in travel.
It’s also slower to reload slightly. That said, it’s still a very
powerful weapon in the hands of an expert, and you can still land kills
in 3 seconds of a SnD match.

My issue with this is: In CoD 4,
you could ALWAYS use this attachment, even at level 1. If players
wanted to complain about it’s use, they could always use it themselves
if they thought they could do a better job. By alienating those who
don’t yet have it unlocked, they are at a sort of disadvantage, and are
forced to kill a hundred or more players to use it.

 Why make
players earn something that put other teams at a disadvantage? It’s not
how it worked in CoD 4, being given the “best” gun in the game at level
1, with a noob tube loaded right-in. If you chose to aim up and pray,
there you go. But I still have to shoot a bunch of people to even get a
chance to try it out in this game.

Based on my lasting
impression, and that I’ve spent 14 hours on a beta with only 3 maps, I
truly think that this game will indeed eclipse Call Of Duty 4 in almost
every aspect. I would guess that based on every other game based
on WW II, the single player doubtfully will come even close to CoD 4′s
intense interaction. The 4 player Co-Op will definitely be a plus
though.

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