By now, you must have heard of the CoD:WaW beta or atleast have seen someone on your XBL friend’s list on it. If not, don’t fret, you’re almost as lucky as them. For now, you get to hear about the game throguh good ol’ shadowjak’s eyes.
Before the beta: For comparison reasons, you must first hear of what I thought from gameplay videos and trailers. *Ahem*: “WTF?!?!?!” said I as I, myself, watched this horrible trailer, “I thought we were going to leave WWII behind finally and have to worry about devs ripping off CoD4, but noooo we just can’t over our now ancient success and have to make yet another game out of it. They just never get old do they! And ooh look co-op, hasn’t been done 500000 times already and we don’t already have modern warfare games with co-op, no sir-ee! What’s next a flamethrower?….They really put in a flamethrower WTF?!?! Great another n00b weapon, just give them that, an RPG, Shipment, endless grenades and let’s call it a day!”Â
As you can tell by my kind words, I just had to have this game like a fat girl wants a chocolate covered cat and automatic cereal bowls. I mean, what could have been better than this completely original looking title? I’m a huge fan of CoD4 and taking CoD4 gameplay and going back in time was clearly sheer brilliance! Treyarch has an infinite chance of success here.
*dramatic music*
The Beta: Ahh the time had finally arrived that Monday night. It was the time that Will had given me my WaW beta code. And as unsarcastically as possible, I must say I was excited. After the four hour download (I’m not even bs’ing that, it was a four hour download), I sat down with a six pack of Livewire and a controller then started the beta….Then in two hours I got back up because I had completed all challenges, played all the game types, got the 7 kill streak, and was at the highest rank possible in the beta… 11. But don’t fret-soon I was reminded that I was a hypocrite for reviewing an online and community off only a few hours of playing. So I started playing again. The beta includes five game types: 1. War- Basically territories, take over all four flagged areas and win the game. 2. Capture the Flag- A new game type for the CoD franchise, but we all know how it works so let’s move on. 3. Team Deathmatch-… It’s Team.Deathmatch. It doesn’t need explanation. 4. Pick up Team Deathmatch- Same as team deathmatch but no parties allowed… which is stupid because isn’t the point to play with your friends…? Just an observation. 5. Free for all- Shoot em’ all! The beta also included three maps which are Makin’, Roundabout, and Castle. Makin’, or however it is spelled, is a beach themed map at night. It is a map full of docks, and like you’d expect from a night level, a place where stealth is your ally. The second map, Roundabout, is probably the best map I’ve seen in a multiplayer game in awhile and the only playable map with vehic-….tanks. The third map castle is a Japanese castle themed map where if you are a sniper, you’ll be rewarded with many headshots and expert challenges completed.
As far as outside of the gameplay goes, you can still create a class but this tiem you have a more limited choice of weapon classes that range from: Riffles, SMG’s, Bolt Action Riffles(snipers), LMG’s (Uggggggggh I’m not even going to say what these are in hopes you won’t use them) and Shotgun’s. Perks are also back and they are basically the exact same ones from CoD4. I played this alone as well as played it with friends for five days and I fell now I can give fair impressions…
Beta Impressions: I did enjoy this beta and am glad I got to try it out but I will not be picking it up, as soon as the beta ends so does CoD:WaW for me. Honestly, even though I did not want another WWII shooter to ever exist, I was hoping Treyarch would succeed. They are a great team who just keeps getting one bitch job after another, CoD:WaW is proof of this even more so. What is wrong with the beta you ask? Why did I say I enjoyed it? Shadowjak why bitch, why, why?!?!!? Well honestly, this game does a lot of things right but then it goes and does even more wrong. First off, I can’t stand this game graphically. Remember CoD4’s great graphics that we all admired and called photorealistic? Those are gone. I know it’s just a beta, but judging from past betas, their isn’t going to be a super holyshitastic graphic update in the next couple weeks. The new game types are… crap. Honestly CTF and War are good in theory but ‘the>in<ory’ doesn’t always work when you’re talking about the internet. Both really just end up turning into Team Deathmatch with a time limit and one person guarding and it is quite a shame. The weapons went from a little unfair in CoD4, to now totally unfair. If you have a bolt-action riffle you can get a kill from anywhere with on hit on any part of the body. SMG’s and pistols have a new level of unfairness as well, they are extremely fast and if you use them you can put any weapon to shame. “But shadowjak” said an idiot, “you are just liek sayin that becuz you git killd by dem.” FALSE MY YOUNG PADAWAN! I thought I was just getting my ass whipped too, but then I used them myself and found out that they really are just cheap in any fire fight. I do give Treyarch credit for a few things though. The vehicles for once aren’t over-powered like in every other game, you can destroy them with any explosives. The maps are very well done, they do not require memorization or playing them many times in a row to know all the tricks to. Instead, you’ll learn them pretty much in one or two lives. And of course, I love my dogs. They may be considered downgraded from CoD4, but it works better than seeing a bunch of people lying on the ground when you call out the dogs. The multiplayer here really isn’t that impressive though and feels like it is just trying too hard to bank on CoD4’s success. Sadly, this makes it mediocre and already leaves that ‘been their, done that’ feeling you get when you play a multiplayer game for months upon months. Which would be fine if this weren’t a beta and I hadn’t only played it for five days. Unless Treyarch makes one hell of a campaign that captures our hearts just as much as CoD4’s , I do not recommend buying this game. It is just another one of Treyarch’s bitch jobs that they get to make Activision money while waiting for IW’s next installment. Personally, until we see full reviews at least, I would recommend FarCry 2, Little Big Planet, Fable II, Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, or of course Fallout 3 waaaaaaaay before this game. You will enjoy it for about a day or two (maybe longer if the campaign is secretly the shit) then fallback on those games anyway. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to CoD4 just because an assault riffle feels more rewarding than an M1 Grande kill ever will.
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