Graphics & Sound

Graphics

This is the last hurrah of the Quake III: Arena engine, and boy, does it look good. It’s really hard to believe that Q3A is four years old this December, especially when modified as greatly as in Call of Duty. Although it’s clearly no Doom III or even a Half-Life 2, CoD is definitely one of the most impressive games this year. Anyone who doesn’t find himself holding his breath on their first approach to Stalingrad should have their eyes checked.

Everything is lavishly detailed, the overall effect is so grandiose it’s almost baroque. The guns, uniforms, objects, vehicles and explosions are pushing the engine to its limits. One quick look at the Call of Duty benchmarks gives you an idea of how much more punishment CoD puts on a video card and especially CPU than Quake III does. And all that performance is used to create the details that populate the world. Trees, bushes, grass, your fellows and enemies (be they AI or human) are all exquisitely rendered.

There could certainly be improvements; the game could take advantage of pixel shaders more, but we’re hard-pressed to really find any complaints at all regarding Call of Duty’s visuals. One major error that we noticed, which has terrible consequences for multiplayer, is that the clipping isn’t quite right. There are too many times that someone’s body or weapon pokes through a wall, and not only can it be seen, it can be shot!

The maps are huge, staggeringly large in comparison with what most games offer. Burnville starts the player with his squad outside of a burning, and you can see anti-aircraft fire streaking into the air, flak shells exploding – all from real platforms and targets present on that same map!

Sound

The speech is easily the best of any first-person shooter to date. Activision even spent the extra moola to get some big names to lend their voices to the game. Careful listeners can spot Jason Statham (Snatch, The Transporter) and Giovanni Ribisi (Saving Private Ryan, Gone in 60 Seconds). Other voice actors don’t have the same name but are quite talented, like the ubiquitous Steve Blum who most notably did Spike Siegel’s voice in the US dub of Cowboy Bebop. Unfortunately, some of the accents are quite clearly fake, especially those of the Russian soldiers.

Weapon effects are simply awe-inspiring, the sheer quantity of effects on the Burnville alone is enough to inspire shell-shock. From the buzzsaw MG42s cutting the night air with their hot lead to the multitude of grenade and flak shell explosions, there’s nary a moment of silence.

Music is the best of any shooter I’ve played. MOHAA always struck me as being generic, while Call of Duty has a certain pizzazz to it. Although, it’s too bad that Activision and Infinity Ward missed the opportunity to play the Soviet national anthem during one of the Russian missions.