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Call of Duty: The Big Red One
Let’s get straight off
the bat, this is a good game, in fact a really good game! Call of Duty
2: The Big Red One puts you into the boots of a rookie in the Army’s
elite infantry unit the Big Red One. Within this toughened squad of men
you will find yourself fighting in some of the biggest battles in World
War II.
Led by the indomitable Sgt Hawk Hawkins the
surprising thing is that the way the squad is developed, you really are
going to feel as though you know the members of the team. It’s a really
neat way of developing the plot and I could say that I’ve not
experienced a feeling of team like this, not even in the Medal of Honor
series and that is saying something. It’s mainly characters like the
Sarge that hold it all together and it makes for a real feeling of
teamwork.
Graphically this game is an absolute treat to look
at and I didn’t see any real technical problems with the way that it
played either. The entire game is heavily scripted and there is a sense
of the game really controlling what you do as well. The storyline is
brilliant though and is a well told tale, although this really is only
present mission by mission. Not as a tale told in its entirety.
The feel of the weaponry in the game is very
authentic and highly enjoyable. Some of the stages involving manning
guns or turrets is a bit long winded however, all well worth playing
through to make it to the next battle front.
The general feeling of the title is a sense of
urgency throughout that makes you really anticipate getting through each
mission. The AI is quite clever and will jump through windows, duck
behind barricades and otherwise take real steps to defend itself.
If I was to complain about the title at all with any
real sense of truly having a complaint, my main annoyance with the title
is that there is a mission structure and the game is not developed to
remember even the checkpoints that you go through during the mission
which I personally felt to be a great disappointment. Each mission can
play up to 30 to 40 minutes depending on what decisions you make and how
fast you move. When we review these games, they often don’t come with
manuals so I foolishly switched the game off a number of times 40
minutes into a mission, losing the lot. I think that the game could have
saved to the hard disk quickly after every checkpoint, it would not have
been hard to do.
In any case I fully recommend this title under the
proviso that you know that you will never be able to sit and play it for
10 minutes before going to work. The title is utterly rewarding but you
have to be prepared and able to give it the time that it demands.
Go get it.
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