Call of Duty: World at War Preview

When GameZone was last invited to an Activision event to see the next Call of Duty title, World at War, we were treated to a single-player experience that was expansive, entertaining and very well paced.

Activision held another event recently in Santa Monica to show off other game modes – the co-op and multiplayer. If you enjoyed CoD before, you are going to go ape for it now. While the multiplayer features the deathmatches, is quick paced and has the pick-ups familiar to most players, it can be competitive – meaning that players vie for stats ratings in the matches.

The 360 was employed for multiplayer and the game falls into the lines normally associated with online matches of the sort. There were two types of deathmatches available – team and free for all. The only one available in the time allowed was free for all. Ok, it did not go so well.

Reflexive at its core, deathmatch was played out on a city-type map, with players running through and killing anything that moved. Part of the idea behind this type of game is to find a target before another hunter finds you. Kill and move, it’s that basic. Those with the fastest fingers usually win.

The co-operative gameplay on the PC, on the other hand, is new and more strategic in nature. Yes, there will be voice available through the client (according to a Treyarch rep overseeing the action). In the co-op game, four players play the allies. The setting for the two maps were in the Pacific Theater. The scenarios were within the campaign setting and yes, in co-op the difficulty is ramped up measurably.

You will fall in with some AI-controlled NPCs, and they work fine, but most of the combat has to be handled by the real players. There are no real roles to play, but coordinating points of attack is vital. Also vital is the ability to revive a comrade who is taken down.

At one point in a huge battle to the coast to take out Japanese artillery that was battering navy, the team was down to one player. Three needed to be revived. Resuscitating is on a timer. Run out of time and the mission fails. It was frantic trying to get to all the players to get them back up, but it was accomplished.

Treyarch’s Dan Bunting stated that “the team has been excited to bring co-op to the Call of Duty universe for the first time. It’s hard to express how much content we are packaging into one title.”

That is certainly true.

Bunting went on to state that Treyarch is “bringing two different types of co-op – campaign and competitive (play for high score).” Adding into the mix is something new in the form of death cards. “Death cards are modifiers that allow you to customize your matches in private co-op games,” he said.

On the multiplayer side, David Vonderhaar outlines the different modes that will be available to players. There will be war momentum, capture the flag, top secret, plus all other game modes (like search and destroy) that players have come to know and enjoy. In addition, during his rapid fire presentation, he said there would be lots of guns as well as primary and secondary grenades, classic perks and new perks with maps that come in all sizes and shapes, improvements to the party system (can set party privacy, and can take your party and leave the lobby), party and search options, heavily armored tanks with destructible parts and a secondary gunner, more create-a-mode slots, plus an increased number of leaderboards.

The game is very visceral and the accompanying sound is Call of Duty magnificent.

Mark Lamia, head of Treyarch, summed it up best when he said: “It’s been one heck of a year for us. Many of you have seen the single-player … the team that set out to do this set out to make a different World War II game. Expectations couldn’t be higher and the team really delivered on all fronts. It really is a new experience.”

Call of Duty: World at War is slated for release in early November.