The audio effects and musical score are also top notch. Throughout the game various interludes of background music will begin and mix together flawlessly with what's happening in the game and gives it a truly cinematic feel. The sound effects of tanks, vehicles and gunfire are excellent and can be even more enhanced with a surround sound audio system for your PC. Character voice overs are good and the chatter during combat adds to the gaming experience but it may not be as realistic as other games. That being said, the game is meant for a wide audience with it's Teen rating, this sacrifice in realism is not an issue.
As with most graphically intense games released it requires a high end graphics card and lots of RAM to perform without any flaws. This review was performed with an AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 1MB RAM and nVidia 6600 256MB graphics card. There were times when the game would freeze or stutter during sequences with a lot of moving character models and on two occurrences, the entire system froze and had to be rebooted. The minimum system requirements of 256MB RAM and 64MB graphics card seems a bit low considering the hick-ups experienced, a system with much greater horsepower than that listed on the box is recommended.
Multiplayer
The multiplayer portion of Call of Duty 2 is somewhat disappointing when compared to the rest of the game. The multiplayer game does feature the same terrific graphics found in the single player but the map layouts and design are almost identical the same as in the original Call of Duty with the exception a few new maps.
Included in the multiplayer game are 12 maps along with the choice of 5 guns two of which are new, a Grease Gun and a Trench Gun. In addition to the holdover game types of Capture the Flag, Search & Destroy, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch is the game type Headquarters, which is a little variation of King of the Hill. Within each map there are two capture areas that either team must try to capture and hold. Once control has been established on one of the areas, the controlling team begins to earn points. This accumulation of points can only be stopped if the other team is able to successfully oust the controlling team from the area.
Bottom Line
If you thought that everything had already been done in a World War 2 first person shooter, then think again. The detailed environments, non-linear missions, along with enhancements to the game's AI are a welcomed improvement. On the downside the graphics are terribly expensive on machine resources and the multiplayer mode lacks the originality of the single player campaign. Aside from that however, and the fact that this is a launch title for the Xbox 360, the game has all the makings of a blockbuster. With Call of Duty 2, Infinity Ward has pulled another winner out of their hat and a must buy for World War 2 buffs and FPS fans alike.
