I’m not going to start this review off by going into the history or the franchise or the Treyarch vs. Infinity Ward versions. This review won’t mention it, I promise, sort of. If you pick up the latest Call of Duty epic expecting last year’s amazing COD 4, then you will get a mixed experience.  In certain ways the latest COD feels more like it’s a WWII mod than a brand new experience.  It kept all of the elements that made COD 4 fun – tight controls, great graphics and fun, addictive multiplayer are all intact here.

At first I was a little skeptical about the series returning to WWII but the minute you pick up a M1 Grand or a Thompson it just feels right. Instead of focusing the entire game on fighting “Gerries” throughout Europe W@W splits the story between two characters – Pvt. Miller who is fighting with the Americans in the Pacific and a Russian named Dimitri, who is chasing Nazi’s around Europe.

Splitting the story in two makes for several jarring transitions.  One minute you are fighting guerilla war fare in the jungles of the pacific – making me think, for the millionth time why aren’t there any Vietnam based games?  These jungle levels are lush, beautiful and deadly. The Japanese set ambushes in the trees and build little bunkers in the grass and pop up out of nowhere. It’s really unpredictable and chaotic. You really see a lot of original thinking here. When the game switches to the traditional – let’s storm this German building mode, the game feels repetitive and looks pretty bland.  In both modes the character models are almost indistinguishable there were a couple of times I walked next to what I thought was a fellow marine only to realize it was a Japanese soldier.

Call of Duty: World at War Review

Another annoying thing is, this year’s installment includes more “invisible” walls where it forces you to go through a shooting gallery. One of the things that made the COD Campaign experience so great was, the open nature of how you complete your missions and the ability to either go straight up the gut, or do flanking maneuvers. There are too many levels here where you have to die about 30 times before I finally got through. There was several times where I wanted to throw the controller at my television. At these points the game ceases to be fun and becomes an annoying pain in the butt.

Towards the end, the Campaign mode gets to be a little frustrating because it feels like it’s never going to end. The first few hours, I was really enjoying myself but it eventually gets repetitive. The lack of any progress meter in games is starting to become a major issue with me. I like to know exactly where I am so I can tell if it’s worth playing through yet another level of storming a building. At one point in the game, I sacked Berlin. At that point, I thought the game was over and was satisfied with that ending. Instead it turned out to be I don’t know the halfway point, because then the game switches you to a Bi-plane flying over the Pacific. Then I played through 4 or 5 more levels for a few more hours and I find myself back in Berlin. I was like – didn’t I just level Berlin? There’s this feeling that this Campaign will never end.  I never developed any kind of attachment to either character, there are no amazing moments like the Nuclear death in the last one

The weapons in the game aren’t as exciting or cool as the modern day COD4. You get an assortment of machine guns, rifles, on rare occasions you’ll come across a scoped rifle or sniper gun, I found a shot gun just once in the entire campaign mode.  The game’s much talked about new weapon – The Flamethrower is disappointing. You never really feel the full impact of using it. It has a limited range and it’s too controlled. If you use it to burn out the Japanese hiding in bushes, I want to see the entire forest catch fire, or see the flame go all over the place. Instead the flames go out almost right away and only stay in the area that you burned.

Multiplayer is almost exactly like the last year’s game. You earn perks and rewards as you play. I always loved this aspect of the series. Generally, I suck at multiplayer but COD keeps me playing because it makes me feel like, I’m still gaining something – like new weapons and enhancements (Scopes, Grips, Suppressors), character Perks (Special Grenades, Health, etc) and the ability to unlock and achieve special talents.  While, constantly dying, I know there’s a whole other game going on.  I don’t know how many multiplayer maps there are, but I seem to keep getting the same 3 or 4 boring, bland maps – I know there must be more, but I never saw them.  I played about 13 hours of multiplayer over the course of a week and kept thinking, why? They also made it harder to unlock things like the Scopes (instead of 25 kills with the weapon, you have to have 75).

You start with 3 modes – death match, team death match and a noob mode. So you don’t get the other numerous modes – until you reach level 14. I’m at level 12 and don’t care enough to unlock everything. It’s very addictive, but not all that fun playing the same crappy 3 or 4 maps and 3 different modes. It only made me miss playing COD 4.  I wish they would set it up so that the stuff you do in Campaign mode translates to the multiplayer.  Specifically have the kill count added to the multiplayer challenges.

Call of Duty: World at War is a very competent game that I enjoyed but didn’t love and I question some of the unnecessary changes. If it didn’t have the COD moniker attached, I’m not convinced it would rise above the level of just another fun, but bland shooter. Its fatal flaw is that it’s not original and I think I’m officially getting Shooter fatigue.

Final Grade C

EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally Posted 11.28.08

Am I the only one having problems activating the Netflix Streaming on the New Xbox Experience?  After waiting for months and slowly getting excited about this update, I was really impressed with the ease and speed of the update but now having some issues with it. To activate the Netflix Streaming you have to go to the Netflix website and enter a code, only problem is the activation process is broken. I entered six different codes and none of them have worked. In the Video Store they have the entire James Bond collection available in HD, in it’s own private space, looks great, I love the idea of having the entire Bond on my HD (even though I own 2 different DVD Collections and the Blu-Rays) was ready to buy all of them only problem is they don’t work. You click one of the links and it just hangs.  Keep in mind I have Verizon Fios so my broadband connection is pretty rock solid.  What problems are you all experiencing?

I was so excited this morning to wake up and finally give the new X-Box Live Experience a quick spin before I head off to work. Right off the bat it was disappointing, the installation routine was quick and easy, but the first thing I noticed was - where the heck are avatars for black people? It’s bad enough that when I used to go to E3, I would be like one of maybe 5 or 10 black people at a convention that had over 70,000 people in attendance, now I have to look at all of these White and Asian avatars. I had to click the more button 4 times before I finally found one, ONE, black female model and I didn’t see any black male models. The creation tools are excellent and I was able to create my custom avatar. But it felt like a slap in the face that out of the samples on the front screen they couldn’t squeeze in a representation of black male and female models. It’s pathetic really. For the last ten years the game industry has given lip service about gaming diversity but things like this don’t help. I’m not one who sees everything through the lens of race, but this is just so blatant it’s hard to ignore. Beyond this, there other problems with the service which I’ll go into later today.

The more that I see of the new Tomb Raider: Underworld game, the more I’m looking forward to. Could this be the version that finally restores Lara Croft to the top of the gaming heap? In this NEW video, hope on board a motorbike with Lara Croft as she tramples through the rugged terrain in the stormy Mexican jungles,  out witting wild beasts and narrowly escaping death! Tomb Raider: Underworld will be released on November 18^th for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS, PS2 and PC platforms.

Ubisoft announced that War World is now available on Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. Developed by Third Wave Games, War World is a fast-paced third-person shooter that combines a unique blend of heart-pumping action and tactical gameplay, introducing an entirely new genre to Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360. Complete with next-gen visual effects and robust gameplay, War World throws players directly into combat on the battlefield of a war-torn planet. Control one of 10 different Mechanoids, each with special abilities, and wreak havoc throughout the 100-level single-player campaign. War World is truly the first of its kind on Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 with a robust multiplayer game set available through the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network. War World on Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 is rated "T” for Teen and can be downloaded for 800 Microsoft Points.

D3Publisher (D3P), a publisher and developer of interactive entertainment software, today announced that RocketBowl™ is available now for download on Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft. A refreshing twist on a classic sport, RocketBowl offers a 50’s style retro-futuristic vibe, out-of-this-world courses and rocket-powered bowling balls for a perfect game of fun on Xbox LIVE® Arcade for Xbox 360. Players will compete in tournaments, challenge their friends in multiplayer, test their bowling skills and more! Players can enjoy the robust, full game features of RocketBowl for 800 Microsoft Points.

In addition to an indoor bowling alley, RocketBowl features 10 crazy courses filled with ramps, tunnels, loops, hills, curves and more to create a bowling experience like never before. Players will enjoy fun and varied gamplay modes as they take on the different courses in Free Play or challenge the course pros in Tournament and Challenge mode where they can wager and win money to upgrade more than 15 unique bowling balls including Strawbally, 8-Ball and the Kalamazoo Special. RocketBowl offers exciting mulitplayer mode matches with up to 4 friends competing against each other over Xbox LIVE or locally on one system with Xbox LIVE play featuring unranked Player and Ranked matches.

Prince of Persia is one of my favorite game franchises, I really dug the last two games in the series. The footage Ubi-Soft released this week makes me giddy with excitement for the latest installment. The graphics look amazing and the gameplay looks interesting. The one thing that I have concerns about is why did they have add an annoying side kick? She’s irritating as heck in this six minute sample, I can’t imagine having her around for an entire game. Why, Ubi, why? Check out the video clilp, like I said, other than the sidekick and bad dialogue, this really seems to bring the series back to it’s platforming roots.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Tomb Raider series. I love the concept of the entire series, the lead character is empowering, and generally speaking I like this genre of game. Every time a new one comes out, I’m all excited only to get disappointed in the first level. Frankly I’ve always found the series unnecessarily hard to play and the choppy 3D Animation has always made me sick (literally) so I’ll admit, I’ve never played through an entire adventure. Will Undertow be the TR game that finally sucks me in? I love the premise and it’s shaping up pretty nice.  Here is the latest game play trailer.  The game will be available on 360 and PS3 this fall.

Ah, Tomb Raider. A game that for some reason I could never quite get into. Every year I look forward to the new installment and always end up being disappointed. Maybe it’s because I’m just not a fan of puzzles in my games. I like straightforward go from point A to point B. Not hitting a seeming dead end during the first level. So in enhance I always found the series to be unnecessarily difficult. But I really like all the footage and screens that I’ve seen from the upcoming Tomb Raider: Underworld game which debuts this November.  Here are two shots of the new model - Alison Carroll.

Have I said how much I despise the title of the new James Bond movie? With that said Activision’s new James Bond game is looking pretty tasty. The official game website is an example of why Flash sucks. It’s slow and busy as heck. Absolutely hate it, but it does have all the community bells and whistles you’d expect. If you want to be frustrated, Check it out.