Call of Duty 3 (Wii) Review
Prepare the flame shield
While there are only 3 First person shooters on Nintendos Wii, it seems somewhat redundant to call the sequel to the critically acclaimed Call of Duty 2 the best one yet because it is in truth, a generic sequel that doesnt evolve the series or expand it, instead it merely tags along for the joy ride. Despite its shortcomings as a game that fails to impress compared to its predecessor, it is the best First Person Shooter currently available. That being said it suffers from a curious lack of multiplayer and game moments that make you say wow. The only true redeeming feature of this game are the controls, which unfortunately at times are borderline gimmicky.
So by now youre probably wondering why should I even continue reading this review and not just skip down to the final score. Well the game is not a complete loss. There are some portions of this game, however few and far between that will one day make it worth the purchase as long as you can pick it up in a Bargain Bin. The controls as mentioned earlier are incredibly well done, much more so than the controversial Red Steel. There are also some impressive visual effects, but nothing short of what weve already seen on the Gamecube.
The ten or so hour campaign focuses on the Normandy breakout campaign from the perspectives of the United States and Canadian soldiers, the British SAS operatives, the French resistance and several Polish tank crews as they support the allied forces by laying waste to enemy tanks. The story tends to jump from one location to the next and is presented in poorly executed CG cut scenes, despite some excellent voice acting. Its normally impossible to tell who is who aside from the characters accents as the environments are lathered in green and grey paint. Eventually the game just becomes a task to kill as many Nazi troops as possible as the game leads up to its lengthy, and yet, much to be desired ending.
Controls ahoy! Getting it almost perfect
The most commendable part of Call Of Duty 3 are the controls. The nunchuk is used from moving the on screen characters toes while the Wiimote caters from the aiming and weapon management. The C and Z triggers are used for Jumping and Crouching respectively. B is for firing weapons and A will act as your zoom feature though it isnt quite as intuitive as Red Steel was. To reload your weapon you can either shake the nunchuk or press the minus button. I find the former easier however for some reason the developers opted to also use the nunchuk motion censoring to change weapons and even though this is done but a side to side shake, often the desired effect will not come through and instead of reloading, the weapon will change hands. By pressing the 2 button youll be able to use some handy Binoculars and 1 will show your current objectives, which are also shown on the mini map. The D-pad is used for a number of things. First and foremost by pressing down on the D-Pad you will preform a melee attack. A left click will throw a frag grenade while the right side will throw a smoke grenade. Up on the D-pad will preform a weapon change.
During the game you will be encountered with many situations that require you to use both the nunchuk and wiimote in unison to preform what I call a context sensitive moment. These include planting charges by twirling the nunchuk and pushing it back and forward to pull the pin out to holding the two controllers like a gun as you try to push off an enemy that has tackled you. Another major context sensitive moment is when you get behind the wheel of a car, which has you holding the two controllers apart from one another like you would a steering wheel. Only problem is without anything connecting the two controllers together its sometimes hard to remember both controllers have to be tilted for the vehicle to move, not just one as we are used to from Carbon and Smooth Moves. Aside from that minor annoyance the rest of the context sensitive moments lay delicately on the line of gimmicky. While we would prefer most Wii games to take full advantage of the Wiimotes innovation there comes a time where its as silly as blowing into a microphone or spinning a wheel to get an early boost. The game could have easily done without these moments and instead stuck with the simpler button combination.
Do the spinning motion, not the locomotion
The control scheme is undeniably solid despite a few shortcomings and promises a more enjoyable experience than the unfriendly Red Steel. With that all said and done it does occasionally suffer from on screen spaz outs where the Wiimote and TV got out of sync and your character starts spinning in an unholy fashion. There are also some occasions where the game will become unable to process all the onscreen enemies, allies and explosions and the frame rate will seem to drop beyond the exceptional level. At times like these you have to rely on luck and a steady trigger finger.
There are 14 levels in Call Of Duty, as well as several modes of difficulty and a few unlockables. Thats about it. Multiplayer was excluded from the Wii version and naturally it has no online mode. That cripples that replay value so much so its hard to recommend this game to anyone. When it comes to the overall enjoyment of a game for me there must be a lot of content to keep me entertained and coming back for more. Call of Duty is as shallow as Wii Sports and minus all the fun.
I’ve traveled back in time to 2004
On a visual stand point the game is one of the most impressive from the launch titles but nothing we havent seen on the Gamecube or even PS2 years ago. There are some nice effects such as the smoke, explosions and destructible environments but I was too overwhelmed by the amount of green, boring textures to call it any better than Red Steel. Sometimes its hard to distinguish between your allies and the enemies and as a result I have ended up popping a few bullets into friendlies before their green tag shows above their head. If you have played Call of Duty 2 then the soundtrack and sound effects are pretty much the same and for once the voice acting is bearable, though a little stereotypical.
To say this game wasnt fun would be an overstatement. Blame my upbringing on Goldeneye or my fascination with content heavy first person shooters like Timesplitters if you must but Call of Duty 3 is a far cry from a worthy purchase. Even though it supports the most solid control scheme so far for an FPS on the Wii the repetitive gameplay and exclusion of multiplayer doesnt do it any favours.
