By Alec Meer on June 23rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm.
…as I shall insist on calling it, even though it’s officialy ‘COD: World at War.’ Anyway, here words here, which I wrote for Britain’s Most Influential Games Journalist Tom Bramwell over at Eurogamer after getting eyes-on with COD5 a little while back.
Things said include the likes of this:
“You get the sense all the secrecy is at least partly because World at War is a huge deal for Treyarch. This is its chance to earn its own vaunted reputation. World At War might have ‘Call of Duty’ in the name, but for once it really does feel like Treyarch’s making its own game, not simply carrying someone else’s luggage. That the team’s chuffed to bits about this was plain to see.”
Your task for the day – predict how many people in EG’s comments will say something like “World War 2? Not interested”.
23/06/2008 at 16:40 Ian says:
My answer to the question is: “More than anybody could ever care to count.”
23/06/2008 at 16:43 Phil says:
Considering the player will be a Soviet solider reaping bloody vengeance upon Berlin, at a time when old men, disabled veterans and children made up a huge portion the city’s defenders, do you think Treyarch will have the guts to convey this in your choice of enemy – or will they stick to bellowing dehumanised Nazis?
Slight edit – not that there’s anything wrong with burning generic Nazis with a flamethrower, its just you mentioned they were going ‘mature’ with this one and I found the amorality in CODIV refreshing.
23/06/2008 at 16:46 cliffski says:
I love WW2 FPS games, and can’t get enough of them, but I’d like to see the player as a Russian or a brit, or even a Nazi or Italian, anything but a chisel jawed all-American action hero with a gruff sexy voice.
I just don’t identify with that role :D
And if there is a wise-cracking sidekick from the mid-west called Kowalski or something similar, then that would also be ‘a negative enjoyment driver’.
23/06/2008 at 17:09 Mooey Poo says:
I think it looks like they’ve been watching the Thin Red Line a bit too much. Only they haven’t really understood the metaphysical juxtaposition at the heart of that film, and replaced it with loads of stuff getting blown up.
23/06/2008 at 17:13 Ian says:
“Only they haven’t really understood the metaphysical juxtaposition at the heart of that film, and replaced it with loads of stuff getting blown up.”
Which, let’s be honest, if you’ve got to replace something clever with something not-so-much clever, it may as well be loads of stuff getting blown up.
23/06/2008 at 17:24 Chaz says:
I’m probably one of the few people who thought that CoD3 wasn’t too bad, and I actually quite enjoyed it. I certainly liked it a lot better than CoD4, which I just never got on with at all. I think that the WW2 weapons are far more suited to the CoD game style. So I’m quite looking forward to this one.
I think Treyarch got a rather unfair and undeserved drubbing over CoD3. Most of it seems to be by the usual forum sheep though, who go “Bahhh!” just because everyone else is.
23/06/2008 at 18:03 SixStringSamurai says:
you can play as a japanese soldier? that is going to be badass
23/06/2008 at 18:09 Malibu Stacey says:
Can you really blame them though? Yet another WWII FPS or the next S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Bioshock (aka Cryostasis), Portal etc? The choice is yours.
23/06/2008 at 18:29 Gap Gen says:
How much like Pacific Assault is it, other than being set in the japanese bit of the great big murderfest?
And if there is a wise-cracking sidekick from the mid-west called Kowalski or something similar, then that would also be ‘a negative enjoyment driver’.
I liked that bit of Operation Flashpoint!
23/06/2008 at 18:34 spd from Russia says:
oh another ww2 action… how exciting -__-
23/06/2008 at 20:15 Ozzie says:
I’m already bored by the description……..well, to each his own, but this not to me.
Yeah, if there would be at least some moral conflict….choices, consequences………I guess not!?
Wishful thinking, probably!
23/06/2008 at 20:27 Acosta says:
Phil: “Considering the player will be a Soviet solider reaping bloody vengeance upon Berlin, at a time when old men, disabled veterans and children made up a huge portion the city’s defenders, do you think Treyarch will have the guts to convey this in your choice of enemy – or will they stick to bellowing dehumanised Nazis?”
Can I laugh without you getting offended? The most probably thing is that we will fight Uber Panzernazis, the Elite troops of Hitler, a deadly combination of Panzer and Nazi with 5 flamethrowers.
23/06/2008 at 21:05 MisterBritish says:
“…we will fight Uber Panzernazis, the Elite troops of Hitler, a deadly combination of Panzer and Nazi with 5 flamethrowers.”
Wern’t they in MOH:Airborne?
23/06/2008 at 21:11 Cruz says:
I don’t see myself ever getting tired of WWII games, and I don’t think I am alone on this. Feel free to blame me for the multitudes of WWII games, but watch me not care while I partake in the Nazi shootery.
23/06/2008 at 21:12 RichPowers says:
MOH: Airborne is evidence enough that the WWII genre has been flogged to bloody death.
Setting CoD5 in WWII doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad game. Nope, it’ll just have to work damn hard to overcome a.)prejudice against the WWII setting (“Not another one!”) b.)preconceptions of it sucking ass because Treyarch’s designing it.
23/06/2008 at 22:28 Pod says:
Are you just trying to rub KG’s face in it that he didn’t make the number 1 slot?
23/06/2008 at 23:16 malkav11 says:
Huh. While a large part of my “Oh god, WWII” reaction is typically just general disinterest in WWII as a setting, due to relatively primitive technology and a tendency to focus on “realism”, a substantial part is also due to the fact that WWII games seem to tread the same goddamn turf with the same set pieces and the same stock characters over and over.
Having some action in the Pacific, which *has* been overlooked quite a bit in favor of 560 Normandy beach landing levels, is definitely a step in the “okay maybe” direction. As is the willingness to take an M rating. Playing a Russian soldier storming Berlin sounds also relatively novel.
And you know, if they can manage to deliver the kind of intensity of experience that CoD4 offered, I might have to look into it. I have after all been vaguely nosing at the idea of maybe playing CoD 1 and 2, despite my distaste for the setting, just because of how cool 4 was.
Edit: Also, coop…coop with levelling. All right, I think I’m sold.
24/06/2008 at 00:58 Fraser says:
I’d like to play a WW2 shooter as a Jew.
24/06/2008 at 01:17 grumpy says:
World War 2? Not interested
:p
24/06/2008 at 04:14 Echo Jolt says:
The thing about World War 2 (aside from the videogame presentation generally being rather tasteless) is that the weapons in that war were all incredibly tedious to use.
24/06/2008 at 09:56 James T says:
You mean the voice-over bits with the nature photography?
“Why do we fight?”
“This great evil. Where does it come from?”
“What is beauty?”
“Man, I could really go for a ham sandwich.”
You’re blowing my mind, Malick!
24/06/2008 at 10:20 James T says:
Relatively new frontiers help a little, but I think a much greater problem is that narrative is almost guaranteed to be stomped in a WW2 title. If you’re playing a WW2 game, you’re pretty much gonna be reduced to an ambulatory pair of arms in fatigues (or in the case of RTCW, a pair of arms and a leg! A ‘kick’ button should be standard-issue in FPSes) — the most you can hope for, character-wise, is a “please don’t kill me!” from a Nazi captive (if you’re playing one of the games with ‘spy’ pretensions), and maybe a few nervous mutterings from your AI teammates, stuff like that. Even CoD4 had more than that, via its SAS bits (…and so did Crysis, if you don’t mind your characters coming out of a Carl Weathers movie). An ‘adventure’ title in, say, the DX mould need not be crippled by a WW2 setting (perhaps a bit limited by the stifling of travel etc, but hey, nothing wrong with a challenge! Make a spy game where you’re taking down a Mosley-led anti-Allies conspiracy in London! …I’d play it), but I can’t think of any, off the top of my head — you’re inevitably just a grunt leading the push up a hill (or a paratrooper leading a push down a hill. Or a commando leading a push… on the spot?
24/06/2008 at 13:49 ZenArcade says:
It could be as ground breaking as it possibley could be, but sniveling gamer-twats the world over are going to turn thier snooty bastard noses up at Treyarch for going back to World War 2. For god sake, Call of Duty 4 was exactly the same as 1 and 2 but with a lick of “modern warfare” paint (and obviously the high-budget set piece sequences, which admitadly were breath-taking)
Personally I rather enjoyed Call of Dutys, black and white, comic book style depiction of war. It reminds me of old war movies your dad would watch on a sunday afternoon, except your in it. And it’s bloody exciting (unlike the real thing, clearly)
Maybe a bit more maturity will shake things up a bit but it’s still a bloody shooter, you galloping ballsacks, whatever theatre of war it’s set in.
24/06/2008 at 19:17 Phil says:
@James T – A DX style adventure featuring a volunteer to the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War slowly realising that the Stalinists funding his cause are as bad as the Fascists he’s shooting would be seven shades of ace.
Get Ken Loach to be the project director, reuse the Spanish assets from Resident Evil 4 for the locations and have a cyber Stalin as the end boss and I’d buy it tomorrow.
24/06/2008 at 22:39 Mustache says:
I think that no matter what they are working on wwii, modern warfare, space battles, they are just building up for a WWI game with masses and masses of players and chaos.
24/06/2008 at 23:21 ZenArcade says:
A world war one game would be woefully unfun.
25/06/2008 at 00:08 andy says:
love good ww2 shooters. modern shooters for me = the yawn.
21/12/2008 at 00:04 Hardman says:
Please END the Second War War and Make a Korean War game. Bring on the Chinese and North Korean human wave attacks in the Chosin Reservoir!