Call of Duty 5: World at War - Windows PC Game Review

Call of Duty: World at War, also known as Call of Duty 5, is the highly anticipated follow-up to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Although I think the World War II shooter genre has been done to death, that doesn’t stop this game from being a lot of fun. It is currently plagued with technical problems that I hope will soon be fixed, but if you can get it working you’ll have a lot of fun. I still don’t think it is quite as good as CoD4, but that was a tough act to follow.

I’m going to pull double duty with this article by making it both a review of CoD5, as well as compare and contrast the differences between CoD4 and CoD5. Like many gamers, the first thing I wanted to know about this game was what made it different that the last Call of Duty, so I will cover those bases. This new game has basically the same features as the last one, but with a different setting and bigger maps. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a glorified mod of CoD4, though.

Call of Duty 5: World at War is a first person shooter set in World War II. It is built on the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare game engine, so the look and feel of the two games are very similar, though this one has slightly improved graphics. Since it is set during WWII, you can play as Americans, Russians, Germans, Japanese, and more. It features online multiplayer and co-operative gameplay, bigger maps than ever before, and lots of weapons to choose from. At any given time during the day or night, you can find thousands of people already playing this game online.

One of the biggest additions to CoD5 is the ability to play co-operatively online with other players. This is something not usually found in PC games, but does often appear on console games, such as Resistance: Fall of Man for the PlayStation 3. Another new option is the ability to drive vehicles - mainly tanks. You don’t have as many lying around as you would in a Battlefield game, but it is still fun to take people out with a tank. The maps in this game are also bigger and taller than before, with more buildings to get into and places to hide. There’s still no place totally safe from harm. Finally, the graphics are improved, and even gorier since it shows people’s limbs getting blown off.

I am running an HP brand PC with an AMD x2 5000+ processor, 3 gigs of RAM, and an nVidia GeForce 8600GT video card. Needless to say, my computer more than meets the base system requirements for this game. I’ve found that it runs just as smooth as CoD4 does, though the graphic detail seems to be a little better in some parts. The environments are all very well detailed with lots of places to crawl, climb, and hide behind. The overall color scheme of this game is pretty dark, with some maps taking place at night. Most every location involves some kind of bombed-out warzone, so things are broken and in disarray.

One notable difference between CoD4 and CoD5 is the amount of gore. In this game, you will see a lot more blood when somebody gets gunned down. You’ll also see arms and legs blown off when your guy gets killed by a grenade or tank. In fact, there is a challenge later in the game where you get bonus experience points for blowing somebody apart.