Hands-On Review--Call of Duty 2

We received our copy of Aspyr Media's latest game release, Call of Duty 2, just over 2 weeks ago after noting that it shipped on 5/25. In order to provide a review, we like to play potentially popular games for awhile. So we've logged an almost embarrassing number of hours playing the single-player and multiplayer versions of it, mostly the multiplayer version.

Call of Duty 2 (CoD2), like its extremely popular predecessor Call of Duty (CoD), is a first person shooter with a World War II theme. It is not exactly a sequel of the extremely popular CoD, like taking place later in WWII, except in the sense that it came out later. The single-player version of CoD2 is all new, of course. We played it a bit but we are partial to the multiplayer version and mostly played it. The single-player version has great vehicle graphics, especially the tanks.

The multiplayer version has a fair number of brand new maps but it also retains many of the popular multiplayer maps from the CoD series. Fortunately, the retained maps are sufficiently modified to make them more interesting and they carry different names. The familiarity resulting from keeping some of the more popular maps makes it easier to play well sooner but there are enough changes to cause initially a familiar CoD player some serious problems. For example, CoD's Dawnville is carried over but the train tracks portion of the map is entirely missing and there are different passages between the graveyard and the other portions of the map. On the other hand, Carentan in CoD2 is pretty close to the same as in CoD.

The weapons are the same but due to the greatly improved graphics engine, they carry far more definition. There are a few differences, though. The sniper rifles are not very steady, even in the prone position, but one can use the "shift" key to hold one's breath to steady the rifle in all three positions (standing, crouching and prone). One minor downside is that the weapons sound somewhat different and, to our ear, a bit less realistic. Another difference that we count as positive is that they carry fewer rounds--e.g. a Thompson submachine-gun carries 20 rather than 30 rounds forcing greater attention to accurate aiming with a lot of enemies around.

A weapon difference that we don't particularly like is only one weapon plus pistol can be carried at a time--it does add to realism, though, and we've gotten used to it. In CoD, one can pick up one additional weapon off the battlefield and carry it. This allows one to have a rifle for long range and a submachine-gun for short range. One can still pick up a weapon off the battlefield but it is exchanged for the weapon being carried. This forces more use of the pistol for close-in action on large maps that require a rifle.

There are no ranks in CoD2 so one does not gain weapons or additional grenades as one advances in rank. There's also no sprint key, so our successful CoD close-in run-and-gun tactic is severely limited in CoD2. No sprint key also makes for a longer time to get back to the action when re-spawned.

A new feature that we really like shows deaths on the HUD compass in addition to the location of your team members so one can more easily find the action when re-spawned. This is especially helpful with all of the new and modified maps.

Another new feature that we like in CoD2 is that there are no health packs. Instead, when wounded one must find cover and remain there for a few moments to recover. Getting severely wounded causes the GUI to turn red around the edges, vision to blur and motion to slow down, similar to being wounded by a grenade in CoD but with a much more dramatic effect. If exposed any fire at this time, one is a goner for sure.

Refreshing the server list is also much faster in CoD2.

Saving the best for last, the graphics in CoD2 are what really distinguish it from CoD. The models are much more realistic. The grass is high and the blades have incredible definition. Explosions and muzzle blasts are very detailed. The smoke effects are phenomenal if too prevalent and linger too long since unfortunately there appears to be a hack (cheat) to see through the smoke.

While we are at it, there are already automatic aiming cheats, rapid movement cheats, spawning cheats and dropped packets (bullet proofing) cheats on CoD2. Although none are as yet as prevalent as on some servers in CoD. There's PunkBuster cheat protection in v1.2 of the Windows version but it's not clear that PunkBuster is enabled in the 1.0 Mac version. This may mean that Mac servers are vulnerable to those using hacks developed for the Windows version before PunkBuster was enabled. Anyway, we look forward to an update that implements PunkBuster even it is not perfect.

Finally, how fast is it? Unfortunately, there is no built-in demo to use as a benchmark and we had difficulty with timing our own recorded demos. So to tell how fast the game is running, we implemented the frame rate (frames per second or fps) display in the upper right corner. This is done by opening the console by hitting the "~" key and typing "bind F10 cg_drawfps 1" then return and type "bind F11 cg_drawfps 0" and hit the return key. Afterwards, pressing the F10 key starts the fps display and F11 turns it off. A tweak guide for the Windows version is posted here.

We used our 2.16GHz MacBook Pro with 2GB RAM to play CoD2 which is a Universal application. We used the default settings chosen for our Mac by the application except we chose a resolution of 1024x640, a 16:10 widescreen resolution. One has to set the settings for both the single-player and multiplayer modes because they are kept separately--this is another improvement so that one can easily switch between higher graphics in single-player mode and faster and lower graphics settings for multiplayer mode.

CoD2 runs very well on our MacBook Pro, with the frame rate running 70-91fps most of the time during multiplayer play. It occasionally dips into the 40's and 50's and rarely into the 30's. This is much faster than CoD running in Rosetta emulation at about 32fps and that occasionally starts making "mooing" sounds and dropping frames during heavy action on large maps like Brecourt. Unfortunately, CoD2 does not take advantage of the dual cores of the Intel Core Duo CPU in the MacBook Pro and other Intel-based Macs nor the multiple processors in Power Mac G5s.

In summary, we are as hooked on Call of Duty 2 as we are on Call of Duty, maybe even more so because it is new, different and offers additional challenges. If you are a gamer that enjoys first person shooters and has the hardware to run it, you won't be disappointed with Call of Duty 2. It's terrific and available for $49.99 (e.g. Amazon.com). [Bill Fox]