Call of Duty 5

First of all, the scripting engine is still the main selling point (as in any CoD game) and makes for a lot of sequences that really feel incidential, but aren’t. A lot of the atmosphere is triggered by clever little cut scenes, but a lot of the atmosphere is again wasted by their obvious placement. For example, in one of the final levels in the pacific theatre, I could identify the exact point on the floor that would be used to trigger some Banzai attackers to emerge from their loopholes.

The scripting engine is also the reason that all strategic or even tactic approach to playing is completely senseless. This became especially obvious to me in the Reichstag level (sounds familiar? more later) that is hard as shit, but only if you don’t understand how it works. It’s set up like a siege level (with lots of cover for you, your fellow russians and the Germans), but if you just duck behind cover (or at an elevated position, which is also available) and try to decimate the opponents, you will play forever or until you run out of motivation (whichever happens first), since there’s an infinite supply of enemies. While this mechanic might be useful to set a quick pace for some parts (where you are actually supposed to rush through), it’s a total motivation killer in this (and various other) place.

The worst, however is that everything feels familiar. The Pacific setting was at least stolen from a different franchise (MOH: Pacific Assault), but the Berlin stuff feels a whole lot like CoD 1.

• The tank sequence is still unusually easy (i played on the medium or hard setting) and has less to do with actual battles than with distinguishing between enemy and scenery.


• The “defend the fleet” water plane level plays exactly like the corresponding level in CoD1.


• And you actually have to battle through the damn Reichstag... AGAIN! It’s a lot more spectacular, with the roof dome coming down and all that, but it’s the same damn thing all over again.

It seems that some seem to concur with me, for example german IT news site Golem which states in the review:

Treyarch [hat] etwas übertrieben mit dem, was durch Trigger ausgelöst wird. Teilweise hat es trotz des Krieges für den Spieler mehr Sinn, die Feinde einfach am Leben zu lassen und durch das Auslösen des nächsten Skripts voranzukommen.

Translated:

Treyarch slightly overdid it with trigger-based action. In some places, players are better off at letting their opponents live and advance by triggering the next script instead.

All in all: Don’t buy it. I was disappointed.