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By the time Call of Duty arrived in late 2003, the genre-defining Medal of Honor series had already seen a serious decline in quality, and many gamers were becoming tired of World War II shooters. But Call of Duty was an excellent game that did everything that the Medal of Honor games did, only better. Despite the release of a solid expansion pack, there were concerns that the move to a new graphics engine for Call of Duty 2 could plunge the series into mediocrity as it did with Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. Fortunately Infinity Ward has developed a game that looks and feels excellent, and while not quite living up to the glory of the original, it's worth playing.
The same basic formula used in Call of Duty is repeated in the sequel. You play as an enlisted soldier in missions for the Russian, British and American armies. These are based on actual events in the war and tackled with a squad of troops at your side. You are not a commander, so you get to engage enemies and participate in some of the most dangerous tasks, which is as much fun as it was in the original. In fact, almost everything in this game plays like an evolutionary step from the original game, which makes for a familiar yet fresh gameplay experience. One of the great things about Call of Duty was the scope of the battles. You were at once made to feel like only a small part of the battle yet critical to its success. Call of Duty 2 raises that to a new level with incredibly intense action and amazing environments. Trying to ﾑplay the hero' is likely to get you killed. Many of the missions are fought against overwhelming odds, with dozens of smart enemies and heavy armor and mortars all attacking your positions. But despite the ﾑHill 400' section being extremely intense, nothing approaches the epic pitched intensity of the final Russian missions from the original game. Stranger still, the game ends on a less intense note, almost as if the developers were trying to reinforce the message that you were just a soldier doing your job.  One major change from the original is the removal of a traditional ﾑhealth bar'. The game uses a damage system that impairs your abilities as you take fire, but allows you to fully heal if you find cover for a few seconds. This makes entering a heavy fire zone more strategic as you can't simply chug a health potion while taking fire from a MG42. This makes battles feel more realistic, as you no longer focus on your health bar, but on avoiding getting fired upon and getting out of trouble as quickly as possible. There is another change that reflects this game also being on a console (it is an XBox360 launch title)ﾗthe save system. It is quite annoying to play a PC game where there are no manual saves or quick-saves. The game uses a checkpoint system which reloads from the last checkpoint when you die. It also reloads from the last checkpoint if you quit the game and restart later. But it does not allow any manual reloading in the middle. You can only restart the mission from the beginning or quit. Quitting is actually preferable when something happens such as the game freezing or your character getting stuck, since that is the only way to resume from the last checkpoint. Many gamers buy these games for the multiplayer, and it is easy to see why. Call of Duty 2 features a deep, well-balanced and robust multiplayer thatﾗlike the single playerﾗratchets up everything that was done right in the original. Other attempts at adding replayability to the short (about eight hours) single-player game include a more flexible mission selection system and allowing objectives to be completed out of order. While starting the British missions in the middle of the Russian missions sounds interesting, it really is of little value since much of the intensity comes from following the plight of a soldier through his story. The objective system plays like a gimmick. You can choose to do objective A, B or C first, but since you have to do all of them anyway your choice has no impact other than making you feel a little less pulled by the nose through the game.  Call of Duty 2 is one of the better shooters of the year. The developers created a graphics engine that is not as modern or advanced as some in terms of graphics details or lighting, but is superb at creating great-looking large scale battles full of enemies without sacrificing performance. The game may not reach the heights of the original, but it is a very good game in its own right and well worth the price for any shooter fan. 
Call of Duty 2 is an extremely intense and violent first-person shooter that uses scripting and a new graphics engine very effectively to make you feel immersed in World War II. You are in constant peril, and the enemy onslaughts are frenetic and will have you scrambling for survival. The blood is minimal, but the indicators on screen as you become more injured cause much more emotional reaction than watching your health bar approach zero. This is definitely a game for older teens and adults.
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