Customer Reviews

Call of Duty 3

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Call of Duty 3 is a really fun game with extremely realistic battle sequences. The downfall is that you can only play in single player mode unless you want to do/are set up for online play.

In single player mode, you're a first person shooter soldier on the frontline in WWII France. You arrive in camp, learn how to maneuver around, shoot your weapon & throw grenades (smoke and explosive). Then you're immediately strewn into various battle.

You start out as private Nichols (American) in the first chapter, but depending on which chapter you're in, you might also find yourself playing as Doyle (British), Cole (Canadian) or Boharter (Polish).

You fight you way through intense battle chapters (there are 14 chapters). You're mostly shooting whichever weapon you happen to have picked up (mostly from dead soldiers on the ground) along your objective route (a barrage of automatics and rifles). Your objectives that guide you along are updated regularly as you complete each task throughout each chapter. And some of those tasks are brutal.

No matter which chapter you're in you are mostly using your primary weapon (a rifle or machine gun), but you'll also need to engage in some exhilarating hand to hand combat, you'll need to guide tanks, fire mortars, row boats, drive jeeps, attach and arm explosives to enemy weapons, disarm booby traps and man other stationary weapons.

To me, all of the chapters are equally difficult. So if you figure out how to unlock them all like we did, there's no reason to play them chronologically (perhaps at least for consistency chapters 1 & 14 should be played respectively first and last).

So all in all Call of Duty 3 is intensely fun, but like I said earlier, the biggest drawback to this awesome game is that multiplayer mode is only available with online play. I'm sure that online play is spectacular for advanced players, but my kids and I 1) are not advanced, and 2) we'd rather just play amongst ourselves for now. I'm no software expert, but if multiplayer capability works online, some genius should have figured out that multiplayer would be equally fun with friends/family at the same console. Hence, that is the only reason why I've deducted a star from the overall rating.

Call of Duty 3 is the classic combat game of World War II. If you've seen Saving Private Ryan, you know what you're in for. Head-throbbing noise and death all around you.

The game goes for instant immersion. You're barely off on your first trip when shells are landing, guns are hammering in your ears and there is complete chaos. You have to be careful not to hit a friendly while you're blasting away at the bad guys. You can barely see what you're doing. Your friends drag you along when you're hurt, and the rain and smoke can blind you.

Call of Duty 3 does a great job of giving you a WWII environment with character. You're in destroyed homes with cans on the shelves and holes blown into bedroom walls. You can see the smoke drifting across the main street, the plunks of rain as it falls through the boards. Bodies collapse realistically. The PS3's high def graphics really shine here.

The controller also adds to the sense of immersion. When you want to whap someone in the head with your gun, you just give the controller a sharp twist. You also use the controller for other steering-related tasks as well.

How about the sound? Playing the Call of Duty series always gives me a headache after a while :) But that's the point - war wasn't fun. It's not about cool pop soundtracks while you blow away the enemies. It's about listening carefully for footsteps in the silence, and then having your eardrums shatter when the barrage rains down on you.

Gameplay is well done with multi-pathed missions that let you choose your objective, within the current mission's parameters. You can't just decide to turn around and head for Bermuda :). Your leaders tell you what your group needs to do - but then it's up to you how to get it done.

Even if you're an uber-soldier and whip through the main gameplay in a short period of time, there is still the online side, which can keep you going for *months*. The in-game play is only training for the real challenge, live human opponents. Of course, if you don't like online gameplay, there is certainly a wealth of gameplay to replay for quite a while before you start to get bored.

Highly recommended!

Yup! This game is so much fun it glued me to my seat! I like the story line, the first person shooting, audio effects, the choice of guns, and the graphics. My favorite WWII gun is the Thompson, and boy, combined with the Springfield or the Garand, one can mix up on close combat or pure sniping. Just remember you have grenades too. Other tools include bazookas, tanks, jeeps, machine guns, etc. You can feel like Audie Murphy in his movie-biography To Hell and Back. The graphics is totally awesome. I used Playstation 3 on Sony LCD TV, and I would suggest to turn up your speakers (gaming or home theater). I stayed away from first person shooting games when I got headaches ages ago with JB 007 N64 after 15 - 20 minutes of gaming. Since then, I only tried it last year with Socom Fireteam Bravo on the PSP. I was curious how the COD3 graphics on the PS3 will affect me, and to my surprise, it allowed me to physically (and mentally) play it continuously until the end.

The only thing I would like to see on a COD is a score of how many kills, statistics, etc. to allow you to get medals, ranks, etc. and progress through the game. I also don't think that the game is 1080p. My TV shows 720p for COD whereas it shows 1080p when I put NBA07.

Overall, my first COD experience was great and lots of fun!

SC

The single player isn't bad, but it was the chance to go war with other gamers online that convinced me to buy this game. It was a big disappointment then when I found it nearly impossible to connect to an online game of any kind. Motorstorm, Resistance, both work fine with my internet connect and router, but this game had some major compatibility issues.

It doesn't affect everyone, but there are quite a few people with these problems, if the Playstation forums are any indication. Fixing it may require tinkering with a number of router settings, or there may be no fix at all, depending on which version of the PS3 you have.

Personally, I'll be exchanging this game as soon as I've beat the single player. I could probably get it working with some time and effort, but really with several other high quality multiplayer games out there that don't have these issues, why bother? If I have the urge for some online FPS carnage, guess I'll be going with Resistance for a while.

And the next time an Activision game comes out, I'll definately be renting instead of buying first.

Call of Duty 3 has some amazing visuals for being one of the first released games on the PS3. Each blade of grass blows individually in the wind...The gameplay is pretty much what you expect, different weapons to use, first person shooter with reconnaissance missions galore. This game does take advantage of the new motion sensing controller. You can steer your controller like a steering wheel to control a jeep, you can hit people with the butt of your gun with a quick flip of the wrist. All in all I would highly recommend this game.

If you're just getting into the COD series on your PS3, then I recommend you play COD3 BEFORE playing COD4...If you play 4 before 3 like I did, then you'll probably feel some degree of a letdown with COD3...It's just not as good of a game as COD4.

With that said, COD3 still has a great deal going for it. There are a variety of missions & weaponry and you just can't go wrong when you're shooting up Nazis in WWII. However, if you're a ONE CLEAN HEADSHOT kind of shooter, then you're going to be sorely disappointed with this one! While there are spots when you put your sniping skills to use, the majority of combat is either in trenches, partially destroyed French homes or across fields when you're storming a German position. And you can literally shoot 20 shots sometimes before a guy falls, depending on the weapon and firing distance.

One thing that really irked me was how you take ferocious blasts from fixed machine gun positions, but then once you take one out and assume control of the gun, THERE'S NOBODY LEFT TO SHOOT!! So you take down an MG42 Gunner and just get to shoot up the French Countryside and maybe a couple of random vehicles before moving on. While this seems to make sense on the surface (you take the defensive position AFTER you've taken the ground, hence no bad guys left to shoot), wouldn't it be more accurate to think that these positions would have MG42s placed around a perimeter or in more than one side of a house? After all, the French learned what a tragic mistake a single fortifed line of defense can be with their Maginot Line.

Since this game doesn't give you advanced weaponry that obviously didn't exist in 1944, it would've been much sweeter to mow down retreating Nazis with their own MG42s...I can only remember 2 times you get to use one of the fixed MGs and once when you can pick one up and briefly use it. Just know that when you're using the fixed gun you can and will take heavy fire and frequently have to back off and relinquish the gun unless you want to start the checkpoint over. Which is another thing...Sometimes the checkpoint saves are quite LONG. So you can move through a good chunk of territory, make a single mistake and end up going back to the start of that area. This isn't really unusual in a video game, just somewhat annoying.

This game is very unforgiving if you decide to sit back and get into a stationary shootout with your enemies...They will respawn and respawn until you get up and lead your squad forward. And you DO have to lead them forward most of the time since the AI can be downright stupid, even hilarious. It's stupid when they block you from getting around in tight quarters or when they jump right in front of your firing weapon...But it's even funny when you're taking a trench and you're behind cover trying to shoot the trench free and your guys just come charging into it right past you and get filled with lead, one by one, a half-dozen by a half-dozen...The bodies literally start piling up right in front of you.

There are 2 other "control type" issues I had with this game. First, you have to ROTATE -- Repeat -- ROTATE the L and R joysticks to direct mortar fire...It's not as simple as just pushing the sticks in the desired direction like in 99.9% of other instances when you use the sticks. This failure of mine to read ROTATE in the correct way led to a 2 month delay in me completing this game. I kept getting into the trench where you first use the mortar to CLEAR THE ROAD and I kept shooting rounds into the trees and on the hill wondering WHY it was so hard to direct the fire. Pretty soon a Nazi would jump into the trench and I'd have to start the level again...And again...And again, until I just quit this one and played through some other games before returning to it.

I also had trouble getting the jeep to drive in reverse. There are a couple of spots where you take over the jeep and have very little room to turn around just driving forward. Drive it into blockage and you're STUCK! Oddly enough I changed the view to overhead and was able to back up...But in first person view I just couldn't get it to back up. It really sucked being stuck up next to a fence or house while trying to turn around...

I also MISSED THE FINAL CUT SCENE after fighting through the entire game! I had no idea I was at the end of the game after blowing up the advancing tanks and was going to pause the game to take a break...I pushed the start button when the scene started playing and BAM!, the credits started rolling. It would've been nice to see the final scene and maybe I can restart the checkpoint if the game lets me...But if not, I'll get over it. That's just one more thing that kept adding up to a gaming experience the ended up being inferior to COD4.

Finally, an awesome Playstation 3 game! Of course, you can probably find the same thing on other consoles, but this version is really good. The controls work great, the graphics are simply a delight to watch, and finding the best strategies to complete missions is always a lot of fun and contains a lot of replay value. If you happen to be one of the lucky people who owns a Playstation 3, this is the game you need to own to help take your mind off the fact you paid 500+ dollars for a video game console.

Call of Duty 3 (CoD3) is the next episode in the CoD series. There is still great WWII action to be had. This one deals with the push towards Paris and has you playing as American, British and Polish troops. Your old favorite weapons are still there: M1, Thompson, Sten, and all the German ones (MP30, FG, etc).

The graphics are great IF you have a HDTV AND a digital connection. When I got my PS3 I had only the basic connectivity. After getting an HDMI cable to get the job done, I saw some great graphics. Smoke grenades produce volumetric smoke, you can see great facial expressions on the faces of your comrades, good stuff. With the basic video cables, eh, it was PS2 worthy. Also worth noting is that the game's max resolution is 720p. The box says that it will run at 1080i, but check Activision's web site. They claim it's a misprint. Huh...

The new wireless controller is pretty neat. As another reviewer said, the wrist flick for a rifle butt strike is pretty neat. You also end up using the controller to fight in hand to hand combat, drive a jeep, paddle a boat and plant explosives. All of these actions require varying degrees of tilting, rotating or otherwise flailing the controller. It really does add something to the game. Freaked out my dog too. :-)

The training mission is the weakest of any of the other CoDs I've played. Not much there. Realistically, you'll figure out the 12 odd buttons as you go. It only took me a few hours of gameplay not to chuck a grenade when I wanted to duck. :-)

All in all, it seems to be a good game. "I like it" although I miss it not being on PC. It did freeze up on me once during a save profile routing, but after restarting the console, it continued from exactly where I left off. No big loss, so no big deal.

If you like more WWII goodness, give it a go! You won't be disappointed!

Just yesterday I wrote a review for "Resistance: Fall Of Man" and this game falls victim to the same online issues! Most maps are open fields but on some maps I see players glitching their butts off! How are we suppose to enjoy the online multiplayer feature if the playing field is not equal ?

The game is beautiful and all but that would be expected on this $ 600.00 system. If the battle field is not equal, the game is ruined. Once again, offline play is great - online play is ruined on some maps by glitchers flying over your head getting easy kills.

Lastly, trying to get a multiplayer game going is a pain. I constantly get connection errors even though there is ample slots available to join a game in progress. However, when it does work - it works well! My only problem is all these weak gamers who resort to cheating and ruin a good thing!

I'm fairly new to the whole FPS genre but I am a big history buff and was excited to play this game. It was really fun at first and then became old very quickly. The missions all began to feel the same. The story was boring and the graphics were just okay. My OCD wouldn't let me move on to another game until I finished this one. I guess I also kept hoping it would get better. Nope. Even the ending of the game left something to be desired. Guess I'm happy I paid less than $10 for it on Amazon (used). I was thrilled to finally finish this game and move on. Thankfully I didn't give up on the COD WWII genre. World at War was MUCH better.