Call of War Review Call of War Review This week we took a little time out to check the new browser-based strategy game  Call of War from Bytro Labs, a WW2 themed free to play RTS where players battle against each other trying to gather resources, build bases, raise armies and destroy each other.

If there’s one word that sums up World at War for us, it’s ‘brutal’. The latest Call of Duty, developed over the last two years by Treyarch – not series creator Infinity Ward – is a brutal slog through a WWII setting unlike any other.

You may think you’ve ‘been there’ and ‘done that’ when it comes to this particular global conflict, but after five minutes in either the blood-soaked single player campaign or the frenzied multiplayer you’ll realise that this is far from your average, tired WWII shooter.However, whereas it changes the setting from the last Call of Duty outing, Modern Warfare, one thing that hasn’t been altered is the core gameplay. The tools of war may be different, the uniforms more old fashionned and the settings less current, but beneath the surface of World At War lies the oh-so-silky smooth gameplay we were treated to in CoD4. Yeah, that’s probably because the game runs on the same engine, but to try and alter such an awesome shooting formula would be nothing short of madness.Even with the same equipment mistakes can be made (Quantum of Solace runs on the Call of Duty engine too), but the boys at Treyarch have done a fine job, adding sweet new effects here and there, making small modifications, and adapting the gunplay to work with all the authentic WWII ephemera. The weapons, for example, are mostly those you’d find in Call of Duty 1-3, but they feel more solid and lethal like the advanced weaponry of Modern Combat. Even the melee attack (which can either be a knife or a bayonet) seems meaty as you jab your pig-stick into the neck of any charging Japanese Banzai or Nazi soldier.And that’s before you get your hands on a flamethrower. Although it has plenty of competition we reckon WaW’s instrument-of-fiery-doom is far superior to the ones you’ll find in Gears of War 2, Far Cry 2 and Dead Space. Well, the devil is in the detail.

Not only does it look and sound like you’re unleashing high-pressure propellant at your enemies, it also causes the world around you to react. Enemies will desperately try to pat out fire on their clothes, or will flail their arms screaming before collapsing in a smoldering heap. Tiny embers will float through the air, and nearby grass and trees will curl up and singe. Our only issue with the flamethrower? Well, can get a little boring to use. Hosing trenches filled with Japanese soldiers is great to start with, but the lack of required skill gets to be a turn-off after a while.So, the weapons are brutal. The environments you find yourself fighting in are brutal.

Even the storyline, with its strong focus on hatred and revenge is brutal. The Soviet campaign is especially harsh and you genuinely feel as if you and your comrades are fighting for vengeance instead of personal survival. In fact there were moments in the Russian campaign (watching a terrified German POW getting a hole shot through his skull in the Eviction stage stands out) when you’ll genuinely start to feel pity for your enemy.

Treyarch may not have changed the core gameplay much (and in some cases their level design leaves much to be desired – two or three times we found ourselves wandering aimlessly looking for the spot that triggered a new event), but the developer does know a thing or two about telling a compelling story.If anything the Red Army stages make the American ones seem a little tame, and it’s no surprise that the game ends with an all-guns-blazing assault on the Reichstag, the very heart of Hitler’s Germany. Well, that’s where the single player campaign ends at any rate.

World at War’s single player campaign, although solid, was always meant to play second-fiddle to the multiplayer options and you’ll need to engage with these to get maximum bang (or indeed squelchy stab) for your Call of Duty buck. More Info GenreShooterDescriptionTreyarch ditches the number subtitle and expectedly returns to WWII and the Pacific theatre of war. World at War has extremely brutal gunplay and amazing online multiplayer and co-op modes, but don't expect much new and improved beyond CoD4.Franchise nameCall of DutyUK franchise nameCall Of DutyPlatform'Xbox 360','PC','Wii','DS','PS3'US censor rating'Mature','Mature','Mature','Mature','Mature'UK censor rating'16+','16+','16+','16+','16+'Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK).

To say that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is provocative is an understatement. It makes you think about a lot of things, including how much violence a video game should have.

For the 16th installment of the Call of Duty franchise, Activision’s Infinity Ward studio has created a first-person shooter military simulation that conveys what it’s like to fight in distant and close wars in 2019, with all of the atrocities and horrors associated with dragging civilians into war.

It is disturbing and thoughtful.

It’s so disturbing that I recommend strongly that parents pay attention to the Mature rating (17 and up). I also wonder why we didn’t see more public discussion of whether it should be rated Adults Only (18 and up), based on a few scenes that are deliberately designed to make you feel so uncomfortable. I’m talking about chemical warfare, civilian and animal deaths, child combat, torture, and the shooting of unarmed women.

You can’t unsee these scenes, and in only one of them is it possible to choose not to participate. It is dark, in the same way that Game of Thrones and Westworld are. If you think of entertainment, it’s more like the hardest scenes of Saving Private Ryan or a documentary like Last Men in Aleppo, about the White Helmet rescue teams in Syria.

The developers tasked themselves with re-imagining modern warfare in 2019. They succeeded. Whether the fighting is at home in the West or abroad in the Middle East, this game shows the reality of war. In that, it has gone further than any Call of Duty (which has sold more than 300 million copies to date) has before.

This review has some spoilers, but I’ve tried to minimize that.

Check out our Reviews Vault for past game reviews.

What you’ll like

A story that makes you think

Above: Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare debuts on October 25.

Modern Warfare has 14 different missions that take about seven hours to play. They present you with a series of combat challenges that are difficult and varied, such as infiltrating a base, escaping from a prison, or hunting down terrorists. But it’s not just a collection of stories.

Each mission shows the difficult job of the soldier in a world where the line between soldiers and civilians has blurred. Are the rules of engagement holding you back? Should you fire upon the civilian who is acting suspiciously? Should you use chemical weapons to gain an advantage? Will you participate in torture to get intelligence for your mission?

The circumstances are gritty, raw, and ugly. Soldiers are put in impossible situations, and the game forces you to feel empathy for what soldiers and people who are stuck in communities at war go through.

Strong characters and voice acting

Above: Farah is one of the main characters of Modern Warfare.

The story is strong. Farah Ahmed Karim, played by Claudia Doumit, is a unique character in Call of Duty history, which has mostly pitted Western heroes against enemies from other regions. She is a leader of freedom fighters in the fictional country of Urzikstan.

Farah has to face her own values. She believes that what distinguishes her from terrorists and occupiers is that she doesn’t cross the line between aggressor and defender, and so she won’t cross the borders of her country. But she has to consider moving the line. As Captain John Price says in a conversation with another character, “You draw the line wherever you need it to be.”

This character and her story is what holds the narrative together. She is able to articulate where she stands because she is pushed to that boundary every day with the occupying Russians and the terrorist Al Qatala faction, a fictional proxy for Al-Qaeda. If the Americans were to use the same chemical weapons as the Russians did in her country, then the Americans would become her enemies, she tells a CIA agent. No exceptions, she reiterates.

Every character — her brother Hadir, the operatives Kyle, Alex, and Price — is tested in the same way, in how far they will go to eliminate the threats from Omar “The Wolf” Sulaman, presumably modeled after Osama Bin Laden, and the Russian general Radoslav Barkov. Where do they draw the line? In our modern world in 2019, it isn’t that easy, the developers say.

The echoes of this theme about where you draw the line in warfare is what makes the story good.

Fresh multiplayer gameplay

Above: Gunfight mode in Modern Warfare pits two players against two opponents.

The new multiplayer maps and the realistic terrain draw you into the world of Modern Warfare. The environments include a cave in the mountains and a bridge over the dry Euphrates River. It feels like these places are familiar, based on news reports from distant wars.

The weapons and forces and spawn locations were carefully constructed for balanced play. I haven’t played against the masses yet, but nothing seemed unfair. I was able to level up with a light machine gun and get some kills in matches. My scores looked familiar compared to past years.

Team Deathmatch with 10v10 is a good addition, as is the larger Ground War mode that pits 32 players against 32. Some of the situations in Ground War were a bit crazy, like a map with skyscrapers. Snipers could shoot each other from the tops of those buildings. It wasn’t realistic, but it was fun.

Perhaps the best addition is Gunfight, where two players square off against two others in a small area. It is close combat that tests how quick and clever you are. You can take an enemy on point blank, fire from a distance, or sneak up behind them. If the match goes on too long, you can end it by capturing a flag in the middle. That forces players to come out of cover.

Swords and soldiers 2 shawarmageddon review. It showed me how to use all the weapons, and it also showed how I could improve with leveled up weapons. This is the kind of multiplayer that I could spend a lot of time with, because it puts you on a path to become better and delivers on improvement.

Realistic graphics and audio

Above: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has real-time raytracing on the PC.

Modern Warfare features a new game engine that Infinity Ward designed to make the world feel more immersive and photorealistic. The tech uses a physically-based material system allowing for state-of-the-art photogrammetry, which just makes things like a pile of garbage on the ground look more real.

It has world volumetric lighting, 4K HDR, and DirectX ray-tracing, and this looks best on the PC version. That means the water and surfaces reflect light in a more realistic fashion in the PC game, and the PS4 version looked pretty good to me as well. It is the best-looking Call of Duty game that I’ve seen. I’ve played a little in both multiplayer and single-player on the PC, and it looks great.

The audio is also excellent, supporting full Dolby Atmos, so that the sound of gunfire is very different in a subway tunnel compared to the outdoors, as you experience in the Piccadilly Circus level.

The added realism of the visuals and audio combines with the added realism of the characters, story, and environment to deliver a great overall experience.

No loot boxes

Above: Yes, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer has tanks.

Infinity Ward studio head and creative director Patrick Kelly said that the game will have no loot boxes or supply drops. Players have reacted badly in the past to the microtransactions that helped unlock weapons and other items in the game in the past. And both Infinity Ward and Activision have listened. That’s a welcome development for triple-A games, and players will still be able to make cosmetic changes to their characters and weapons. Players have been very suspicious about this, but Infinity Ward has been equally emphatic about its stance.

Crossplay

A hero must rise. Diablo, the Lord of Terror, has fallen to a brave hero beneath the church of Tristram. Now that hero is gone, replaced by a Dark Wanderer who roams the world of Sanctuary leaving death and destruction in his wake. The expansion to Diablo II adds a host of new features to the game, including two new playable classes - the shapeshifting Druid and the cunning Assassin. Diablo 2 classes.

Some elements of crossplay with PC players and console players are both good and bad. Crossplay lets you play with your friends on all platforms, but it introduces some uncertainty about whether you can really have a fair fight between someone playing with a mouse versus a controller. Infinity Ward has introduced some controls that keep the balance in mind.

The crossplay will be particularly useful in the Special Operations co-op mode, where players can fight together in groups of four.