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Call of Duty 3

Posted January 19th 2007 by Adam Glasgow.

Even though the original Call of Duty was first released for the PC less than four years ago, the franchise has already seen more than its fair share of sequels, spin offs, and expansion packs. One of these games - Call of Duty 2 – just so happens to be one of my favorite first person shooters for the PC. So when I heard Call of Duty 3 was going to be one of the first games released for the Wii, I had expectations, hopes, and fears. My positive experiences with past Call of Duty games set my expectations high, while my hopes stemmed from me always thinking that FPS on the Wii could be really interesting. My fears came from me knowing that while FPS on the Wii could be interesting, it could also possibly be a disastrous mess. This fear overwhelmed me. The only time I have ever felt a fear close to what I felt while worrying about the quality of Call of Duty 3 for the Wii was when once, years ago, I was wanted dead by the Mafia for poking a mob boss' jiggly tummy.

I may be exaggerating a little. I may also have never poked a mob boss' tummy.

When I finally got my hands on Call of Duty 3 there were some things that surprised me. As you all probably know, there was quite a bit of negative hype surrounding this game regarding its graphics. And while I did not constantly keep up with the game during its development, after seeing some pictures here and there I pretty much bought into that idea. Now while this game ended up being no looker (there are older versions of Call of Duty that look better than this), mostly everything was much more visually pleasing than I expected it to be. Even though nothing in the game is beautiful, everything is adequate, save for some of the textures.

Now I always knew more than anything that what would make or break this game wouldn't be the graphics, but the controls. So it was unfortunate that the second thing that surprised me was how hard the Wii controls were to get used to. After so much talk about how the Wii would be a great machine for first person shooters, I guess I was expecting to pick up the controller and never want to touch a mouse and keyboard again. How it went for me was quite the opposite. I would play for approximately two minutes, after which I would become frustrated and start messing with the control sensitivity options. After some fine tuning I would hop back in the game and play for another two minutes, after which, again, I would decide that it still felt weird and needed more adjusting. So I would readjust. This process continued throughout more of the beginning of the game than I would like to admit. It didn't take long before this became very, very aggravating. I was playing properly, but nothing felt right. It was always far too sensitive, or not sensitive enough. I couldn't seem to find the proper sensitivity setting to get me back to my normal FPS head shooting accuracy. It was driving me crazy. I eventually got used to it, but never really got very good at it. It was such a bother that it really dampened my whole experience of the game.

That's when I had an epiphany. What if it wasn't really the games fault? What if maybe I (gasp) just suck at FPS games for the Wii, regardless of my ability to more than hold my own in any other console or PC shooter? I decided to investigate. Luckily my parents reproduce like rabbits and there were plenty of other offspring in my house that I was able to get to try out the game. First, my youngest brother gave it a go-round. "If he can do it," I thought, "than I must just suck." I watched him play the first few levels one day, and even though he was having a similarly hard time getting used to the way the controls felt, he seemed to actually enjoy the experience of dying because he couldn't master how you are supposed to virtually kill other people on a battlefield with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. I walked away deciding maybe I had approached the game the wrong way. Maybe the game wasn't about becoming a hero in a time of crisis and standing shoulder to shoulder with your brothers in arms and fighting an enemy. Maybe, possibly, this game was actually about a mentally retarded person who somehow got sent to war. You play this person. You can't walk right, you can't aim right, and you find yourself hiding more than fighting because of it. Your other squad members probably hate you.

The next day, however, I found the same brother playing the game again; only this time he was doing a much better job of not dying. I watched him again for a while, astounded that my theory of the soldier being mentally retarded was wrong and that, in fact, I did just suck. Somewhere in there another one of the offspring I was talking about earlier decided that the game looked fun too, so he started playing it. He picked it up faster than either me or my other brother, and he loved it so much he played through it twice in the time it took me to fumble through the game once. After realizing that my not enjoying the game was purely based on the fact that I wasn't good at it, I was able to step back and critique the game more fairly, and for the most part it stood up quite well.

Just like every Call of Duty game prior to this one, Call of Duty 3 does a great job of making you feel like you're really thrown into the middle of a war. Unlike most FPS games, you're just one man of many, and your company is going to function with or without you, so it really is up to you to either put up or shut up. There are constant explosions around you, soldiers barking orders, and enemies everywhere. It's almost overwhelming, which is a very good thing and exactly what the game is trying to do.

As far as the shooting goes, there are several different locales, and each one is put together very well. You'll never get bored or frustrated from annoying level designs. There are also some vehicle missions which are entertaining, but again the control creates some issues. Using the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to steer is more amusing than anything, and while amusing is still fun, I'm sure that's not what the developers were going for. There are also some basic "pull the lever" type parts of many of your missions, most of which are done with ridiculous Wii Remote motions. To pull that lever you really pull that lever. Again, more amusing than anything.

The only other thing keeping this game from greatness is its absolute lack of multi-player. The entire first person shooter genre is popular almost completely because of multiplayer, so a lack of that is almost inexcusable. Luckily, this games single player mode is so solid that you don't mind turning the other cheek, just this once.

Steady Beat - The best first-person shooter on the Wii's launch library.

I think for most players this game actually falls somewhere in between "slight pulse" and "steady beat" due to its controls that some people love and other people seem to only get frustrated with. The bottom line, though, is that Call of Duty 3 is the best FPS game on the Wii thus far. And as such, it's worth at least a rental so you can figure out if you're the type of person who loves playing FPS games on your Wii, or if you're better off sticking to shooters on your PC or Xbox 360. If you are one of those Wii FPS guys, and you want a well polished fun single player game with a great since of scale, then look no further than Call of Duty 3. If you're looking for some multi-player action, or if you turn out to be one of the guys who just can't get first person to feel right on the Wii, elsewhere would be the place to look when deciding what your next video game purchase should be.

Posted in: Reviews