Brevity
12-30-2005, 09:57 AM
BREVITY’s COD2 Review:
I am doing this since I was asked to and since there are a few people out there that have not picked up this game and might want to know what others think.
Story:
Well once I will not destroy the story for you by telling you all about it. lol It’s a WWII game what the hell do you think the story might be about. Seriously though in this game you play through several different campaigns as different nations fighting through the war; for this reason alone you can expect no harmony in the story. In truth there is no story, there is just reasons to go here or there and do this or that. But this is a WWII FPS there is no need for much of a story and I don’t think it’s a draw back to the game.
Game play:
There was a good variety of mission types and weapons and types of scenery. There was really only four basic types of scenery: the bombed out crummy cities, the countryside, the desert, all the above at night or in the rain, and the snowy part. My favorite thing about the game was there were several if not most missions that could be done with lots of sniping.
I beat the whole game on single player in like 8 hours. I cant help but think it was a fun and great experience but it really could have offered more. I would have liked to see a few more campaigns or other countries to play as. Different mission types could have stretched the experience. I see so many people say well 8 hours… “on what difficulty?” I played it through on normal the first time and then went back and played it on Vet the second time. I can tell you its going to be at least double the length on vet if not longer. The game is truly truly tough on vet. On vet enemies seem to single you out more, there seems to be more of them and they are all great shots. lol
So as far as length goes and I am guessing this is true of any game… play it on the hardest level if you really want to prolong your experience and plus in this game you’ll get a few more points achievement points.
This is how sniping works in this game; first your guns are all authentic to the period both in look and action so there good at zooming you in but you will not find like a double zoom or anything like that. You can however hold down the left thumb stick and gain a few seconds of concentrated effort out of your character. He will stop moving around so much and slow his breathing (I actually think he holds his breath for a sec), which allows you to take a steadier shot.
Overall controls were very good and made us of all the buttons. If you didn’t know you can jump in this game and go fully prone. I thought this was a real plus to the game. I mean not having those things in a game is dumb since in real life people can do just that.
I don’t think you can lean around corners or do any other tricks to shoot from behind cover. If you can than I missed it but I think that it sucks that you cant. I love to shoot from cover in other games.
Graphics and Sound:
The graphics on this game were high res and next gen… but sucked. I mean go find a cow in this game and you will see what I mean. The bushes offer little cover due to their not being thick and leafy enough. There were some spots of individual blades of grass but not many (not like Kameo). The characters face and overall body models to me just looks wrong, they lacked refinement. I don’t think this hurt the game since you rarely get a chance to sit around picking at those things. This was the first 360 game I played, the first one I beat, and the first one I thought “Mehh, the graphics are not so great.”
The second day I had this game I got my Logitech 5450 5.1 surround sound system. WOW!! This game went a lot higher in my book once I could hear all those cool as hell ambient sounds going on all around me (literally). I really cant tell you enough how awesome it is to hear a shot originate near your front left and terminate in a piece of wood at your front right. Not only that but once I started playing online it made it a whole lot harder for my foes to sneak up behind me or move around in a house that I was in, due to the sounds their boots made on the old wood floors.
Multiplayer:
Well as many of you have heard the multiplayer in this game sucks. I will second that. Think back to your frustration over the original Xbox Mech Assults online experience. Recall that after every match you were tossed out of any lobby and had to get back into another game with different people. Well that’s just what its like here. Added to that frustration is that its only 8 players online, you cant create a match yourself, and there is more lag than any other game I can think of that I have played online recently. I mean to tell you I have not just lagged out of a game but lagged out of lobbies: I couldn’t believe pregame lobbies could crash. This is not at all due to my connection either and with just a little searching you can find many others complaining about this.
I will say though that for those times I got in lag free matches with fully 8 people I had fun that was reminiscent of my early days with Ghost Recon one on Xbox (before all the exploits). As far as I can find you cant have a guest online and that’s also sucky.
Overall:
I would give COD2 a 7. I can’t tell you enough how fun this game was. I had a blast playing it on normal and even on Vet it was fun, but on Vet its really frustrating and since I got loads of other games to play right now and I am not the masochistic type that’s happy and content making myself angry I will no double not fully complete the game a second time on Vet. I would say this is a must own/rent game for those with a 360.
7 being
-1 for graphics. I am jaded I know but I just thought this game could have looked better.
-1 for abysmal “current” XBL experience. Mech Assault got a DL that helped its lobby system and other stuff way back when so I hope COD2 gets some online updating to make it better.
-1 for length. I just really thought this game could have been longer and not just length for lengths sake, but longer with more missions of different types, and hell steal some ideas from other franchises the way they stole movie scenes and ideas from movies.
I am doing this since I was asked to and since there are a few people out there that have not picked up this game and might want to know what others think.
Story:
Well once I will not destroy the story for you by telling you all about it. lol It’s a WWII game what the hell do you think the story might be about. Seriously though in this game you play through several different campaigns as different nations fighting through the war; for this reason alone you can expect no harmony in the story. In truth there is no story, there is just reasons to go here or there and do this or that. But this is a WWII FPS there is no need for much of a story and I don’t think it’s a draw back to the game.
Game play:
There was a good variety of mission types and weapons and types of scenery. There was really only four basic types of scenery: the bombed out crummy cities, the countryside, the desert, all the above at night or in the rain, and the snowy part. My favorite thing about the game was there were several if not most missions that could be done with lots of sniping.
I beat the whole game on single player in like 8 hours. I cant help but think it was a fun and great experience but it really could have offered more. I would have liked to see a few more campaigns or other countries to play as. Different mission types could have stretched the experience. I see so many people say well 8 hours… “on what difficulty?” I played it through on normal the first time and then went back and played it on Vet the second time. I can tell you its going to be at least double the length on vet if not longer. The game is truly truly tough on vet. On vet enemies seem to single you out more, there seems to be more of them and they are all great shots. lol
So as far as length goes and I am guessing this is true of any game… play it on the hardest level if you really want to prolong your experience and plus in this game you’ll get a few more points achievement points.
This is how sniping works in this game; first your guns are all authentic to the period both in look and action so there good at zooming you in but you will not find like a double zoom or anything like that. You can however hold down the left thumb stick and gain a few seconds of concentrated effort out of your character. He will stop moving around so much and slow his breathing (I actually think he holds his breath for a sec), which allows you to take a steadier shot.
Overall controls were very good and made us of all the buttons. If you didn’t know you can jump in this game and go fully prone. I thought this was a real plus to the game. I mean not having those things in a game is dumb since in real life people can do just that.
I don’t think you can lean around corners or do any other tricks to shoot from behind cover. If you can than I missed it but I think that it sucks that you cant. I love to shoot from cover in other games.
Graphics and Sound:
The graphics on this game were high res and next gen… but sucked. I mean go find a cow in this game and you will see what I mean. The bushes offer little cover due to their not being thick and leafy enough. There were some spots of individual blades of grass but not many (not like Kameo). The characters face and overall body models to me just looks wrong, they lacked refinement. I don’t think this hurt the game since you rarely get a chance to sit around picking at those things. This was the first 360 game I played, the first one I beat, and the first one I thought “Mehh, the graphics are not so great.”
The second day I had this game I got my Logitech 5450 5.1 surround sound system. WOW!! This game went a lot higher in my book once I could hear all those cool as hell ambient sounds going on all around me (literally). I really cant tell you enough how awesome it is to hear a shot originate near your front left and terminate in a piece of wood at your front right. Not only that but once I started playing online it made it a whole lot harder for my foes to sneak up behind me or move around in a house that I was in, due to the sounds their boots made on the old wood floors.
Multiplayer:
Well as many of you have heard the multiplayer in this game sucks. I will second that. Think back to your frustration over the original Xbox Mech Assults online experience. Recall that after every match you were tossed out of any lobby and had to get back into another game with different people. Well that’s just what its like here. Added to that frustration is that its only 8 players online, you cant create a match yourself, and there is more lag than any other game I can think of that I have played online recently. I mean to tell you I have not just lagged out of a game but lagged out of lobbies: I couldn’t believe pregame lobbies could crash. This is not at all due to my connection either and with just a little searching you can find many others complaining about this.
I will say though that for those times I got in lag free matches with fully 8 people I had fun that was reminiscent of my early days with Ghost Recon one on Xbox (before all the exploits). As far as I can find you cant have a guest online and that’s also sucky.
Overall:
I would give COD2 a 7. I can’t tell you enough how fun this game was. I had a blast playing it on normal and even on Vet it was fun, but on Vet its really frustrating and since I got loads of other games to play right now and I am not the masochistic type that’s happy and content making myself angry I will no double not fully complete the game a second time on Vet. I would say this is a must own/rent game for those with a 360.
7 being
-1 for graphics. I am jaded I know but I just thought this game could have looked better.
-1 for abysmal “current” XBL experience. Mech Assault got a DL that helped its lobby system and other stuff way back when so I hope COD2 gets some online updating to make it better.
-1 for length. I just really thought this game could have been longer and not just length for lengths sake, but longer with more missions of different types, and hell steal some ideas from other franchises the way they stole movie scenes and ideas from movies.