Update: I'm giving away a beta key to the PC Beta of World at War, Click here for details
Update: New game modes added and level cap upped.
I was lucky enough to get a beta key yesterday for the latest Call of Duty game, World at War. Now, I'm a huge fan of Call of Duty 2 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but I wasn't such a huge fan of Call of Duty 3. In case you didn't know, Infinity Ward is the studio that developed both CoD2 and CoD4, but in between those 2 they let a developer called Treyarch do CoD3. Now, I've heard rumors that Treyarch was rushed in doing part 3 and that's why it was unpolished and just kind of shitty, but who knows, they could just be trying to make an excuse for a subpar game. Anyways, Treyarch are the ones that developed the latest, World at War, which had me a little leary at first. I didn't want to go from another incredible Infinity Ward game to a subpar Treyarch version again. So how does the Multiplayer in World at War compare to Modern Warfare? Read the interview I did with myself after the jump. (Remember this is only a multiplayer beta, I can't comment on the single player campaign).
Is World at War better than Treyarch's last attempt with Call of Duty 3?
The multiplayer is indeed better than 3. The game uses the Call of Duty 4 engine, so there is a similar look and feel between 4 and 5. The extremely large levels with weird vehicles are gone, although there are vehicles in this one they don't seem forced or over the top. The only level in the beta that has a vehicle only has 1 tank and 2 people can ride it, one being a gunner. The game just feels more like 4, than 3 felt to 2, if that makes sense.
How does World at War compare to Modern Warfare?
Honestly, I still prefer Modern Warfare. World at War has brought us back to World War 2, which is a big change after having some of the great modern guns, but the multiplayer is still fun. All of the perks and challenges aspect of multiplayer are still there. You still have to level up to gain new guns and things just like in 4, but they are a little different, of course, and there are more perks this time. You have 3 perks and a vehicle perk, which is kind of cool. There are still the "specials" for getting 3-5-7 kills in a row, however now, instead of an air strike at 5 kills, you get artillery which is basically giant guns that shoot bombs (someone correct me on what these things actually are), and when you get 7 kills in a row, instead of helicopters you get dogs (3 or 4 of them). The dogs are kind of cool, they appear at your spawn and start running throughout the level, attacking the enemy team and yes the enemy can shoot the dogs to kill them. The only thing I don't like about the dogs is it's hard to tell if they are your teams dogs or not, so you don't know whether or not to shoot them. But overall, at this point anyways, I still prefer Modern Warfare over this one, but I will be buying this one too.
What are the different gametypes in multiplayer?
Since I'm not at home in front of it right now this is going by memory.
The first one is "War" which is really cool actually, I think there was a mode like this in Battlefield 2, but I'm not sure. And apparently this game mode was in Call of Duty 3, I just didn't play it enough or remember that it was there, my bad (Thanks Ken). There are 5 flags, each team already controls 2 of them and the middle one is up for grabs, you must capture that flag and then move forward and take over the enemies next flag, and so forth, until you've captured all of the flags. It's actually really fun, and there's this thing called Momentum, where if you are on a roll capturing flags, it makes your guys a little faster runners and capturers.
Next is "Capture The Flag" which is your basic capture the flag game. Each team has a flag and you have to run and grab it and return it to your base to get a point.
"Team Deathmatch" and "Open Team Deathmatch" are next, nothing special here except "Open TDM" doesn't allow parties.
"Free-For-All" is the last one, and it's just every man for himself, pretty simple.
How are the maps?
There are only 3 levels in the beta (I believe) and they aren't bad. I can't think of the actual names of the levels right now, but in one of them you're outside in what resembles a refugee camp out of rambo. It's right near the water and it's a medium sized map. The next map is a japanes map. It's at sort of a temple type place with a few buildings to go in and a nice size courtyard to run around outside. It's also probably a medium sized map. And the last level is kind of a run down industrial area/train yard and it's quite large and confusing. Overall I'm not impressed with the map design for some reason. The maps seem cluttered with stuff and that makes them seem kind of small compared to the maps in Modern Warfare. Obviously I haven't had time to figure out where everything is on the maps so I don't know good hiding spots, etc, but they just don't seem to have the great design that the Modern Warfare maps have. Also, the spawn points are horrible, it seems like you're getting killed a lot as soon as you spawn. I know I've only seen the beta maps, but I hope the retail ones are a little better than these.
Is there prestige mode?
Yes, if you want to get the fancy little icons by hitting prestige mode you can do that. I'm not sure how many levels of prestige are in this one or even what the highest level you can achieve is, the beta only goes up to level 11.
Is there something like the red dot?
Yes. For those that don't know, in Modern Warfare, if you completed a challenge for a specific gun it would unlock different sights and scopes for that gun, one of them being the red dot sight. The red dot sight is basically a clear piece of glass with a red dot in the middle, which you would use instead of the normal sight on the gun. It provides a clear image of everything in front of you, so nothing is blocked by the gun or the sight itself, and it allowed for better accuracy (I think). Now being that we're back in World War 2, obviously they didn't have a "red dot sight", but they did have the equivalent which is basically a crosshair on a piece of glass with a dot in the middle. Exact same idea, it's just not red I guess.
I heard there's a new special grenade?
That there is, it's a poison gas grenade. I believe it took the place of the stun grenade from CoD4. It's basically exactly like it sounds, you throw it, it expells poison gas and makes anyone that walks into it lose vision for a second, the screen blurs and goes black and white and you just become "stunned" for a lack of a better term. And yes, you can poison your own teammates, which I learned last night haha.
These are the only major questions I can think to ask myself right now, but if anyone has questions feel free to leave a comment and I'll try to answer them.
Overall I'm happy with what the beta is showing me right now. It's no Modern Warfare, but it's better than Call of Duty 3 and it is a lot of fun to play online. Do I think it will make people drop part 4 and move to 5, definitely not. So all of you that are worried that there won't be as many people online playing CoD4 once this comes out, don't worry, there will still be plenty of people playing... I'll be one of them.
Did you ever actually play CoD 3 multiplayer? I have to guess no, since you don’t know that the War game mode was a staple to the CoD 3 multiplayer experience. I guess since you didn’t know that, your entire comparison of this game to CoD 4 and CoD 3 to CoD 2 is something that can be ignored, right?
I see you think “The maps seem cluttered with stuff and that makes them seem kind of small compared to the maps in Modern Warfare.”
I would disagree with you righ there. The difference in this game is that you can not throw the grenade from your spawn point to the opposing team spawn point. So this game actually makes you do something besides spawn and throw throw throw.
Ken: I did play CoD3 multiplayer, but I guess it slipped my mind that there was a “WAR” gameplay mode in it, since I didn’t play it very much (and it’s been a long time since I have), so my bad on that point. When it first came out I could barely get into a game without lag which turned me off to it. But I actually think CoD2 had a lot of lag when it first came out too, but at that point I had nothing else to fall back on, where as when 3 came out and was laggy I just went back to 2.
Michael: I just didn’t like the train yard map (don’t know the name), there just seems to be way too much going on on the outskirts of the map, but it could just be because I’m not used to the maps since I haven’t had a ton of time to play yet. But instead of spawning and getting grenaded, I seem to spawn and either get shot by 3 or 4 members of the other team that I spawned next to, or just hit by artillery…
But like I said, I’m actually enjoying the game, it’s not bad. And I read that there are something like 20 multiplayer maps in the retail game, so I’m sure there will be some maps people like and some they don’t. Obviously this is just a beta.
Per your request for clarification, artillery pieces fire high explosive shells not unlike giant bullets that explode when they land, rather than bombs, which by defnition or gravity based (i.e. dropped by a plane as in the air strikes in CoD4). Your typical artillery piece fires by means of what is known as indirect fire. Basically lobbing a giant explosive shell up into the air and hoping it destroys its target by hitting it (unlikely) or by the damage caused by the resulting blast. An artillery battery will fire several rounds to “soften” a target, which typically means it breaks down any defenses prior to infantry coming in to mop up afterwards. I’d recommend reading the Wikipedia article on artillery as it makes for a very interesting read. Otherwise you can also read the article on one of the more common US artillery pieces of the war, the 105mm M2 Howitzer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M101_howitzer or the widely feared German rival the 88 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88mm (widely considered by most experts as the best artillery piece of the entire war). For a size comparison, the Barrett .50 Sniper rifle from CoD4 fires a 12.7mm round, which is the largest caliber rifle round. Your average artillery gun fires a shell 7 to 10 times larger than that filled with high explosives. Similar weapons to artillery, but more on a unit level would be a mortar, which is essentially portable artillery that can be just as effective and deadly as any artillery bombardment. Ask any WWII veteran or read any battlefield account of the war and they will tell you that the thing soldiers hated and feared worse than any machine gun, tank or enemy plane, was an artillery or mortar barrage. Hope that helped clear that up.
i Want a COD wold at war beta code i rephrase that i Need a COD5 live beta code!!!!!!!!!! someone got 1 and dont intend on using it hit me up at badboy51804@yahoo.com ill give you a free month of xbox live which is all i got to give in return ill greatly appreciate it
Your review is pretty decent, the train level is called Roundhouse, because it is where trains would come in be turned around and hooked up to leave the yard. The Japan level is called Castle its a nice japan estate, and the other level is called Makin and Jap camp on the water. There are a couple of reason why i like this better than COD4, 1. You can not throw a grenade all the way across the map like Cod4 which is just plain silly. 2. I like not having red dot and Acog and so on, this game makes you better, you have to be a better shot to kill people rather then just put you dot on a person and pull the trigger as fast as you can. Plus i like dogs better than the Helio, cause with the Heli you never now if its gonna kill a bunch of people or just fly around and kill no one, at least with the dogs you have a better chance, and with the dogs, they come in 2 colors, if they are Brown and Black like a German Shepard they are on your side, if they are All black when you see them, that means they are trying to kill you and you should shoot them! Also the site you were talking about is Aperture Site for the guns like the Thompson and the MP40. I also wanna say I like all the stuff in the levels it gives you more hiding places and it looks like what a WWII battlefield would look like, COD4 the maps are a little sparse for cover, you must take into account different era and different battle tactics. Play Brother in Arms to see what i mean. Don’t get wrong I still like COD4 very much and play it a lot but it does get frustrating sometimes to play. Plus i like the game modes in COD5WW and some of the new perks are pretty neat, Molotov Cocktail as a grenade, revive where you can heal a teammate in last stand is pretty cool, the throwback where you can take a enemy grenade reset the fuse and throw it back. But the best thing about COD5 is NO NOOBTubes!!!!!!!!!! hope that clears things up for all of you out there!
Andrew: Thanks for the comment, I wrote the mini-review after only playing for a few hours and I wasn’t at home when I wrote it so I couldn’t get the level names, so thanks for that. Also, thanks for clearing up the dog color thing, I had no clue they were different colors, I just shot them if the ran toward me. Also, the aperature site is on all the guns, I’m currently using it on the single shot rifle, and it’s really the same as a red dot scope I feel. Also as far as the “noob tube” there is still a grenade attachment for some of the guns, so it’s technically the same as the grenade launcher in CoD4, although it doesn’t go quite as far. But as I said, this post was written before I really had a chance to sit and play and I am enjoying it more and more each time I play, looking forward to the full game.
Can You Do Search And Destroy Or Anyfin Like That ?
Josh: When the beta first launched you could not, but as of yesterday they added Search & Destroy to the game modes, as well as a Hardcore Category which has Hardcore Team Deathmatch and Hardcore Search & Destroy. They also raised the level cap from 11 to 24, so you can no unlock even more guns/perks, etc.
All i gotta say Bouncing Betty’s are the best!!! They just rip through the enemy and there is no way to destroy them which is nice! I am already level 24. Question do you anything about the prestige ranking, i know every time you prestige up you gain the ability to add an extra custom weapon class. If that is all you get forget that i am just gonna stay at level 65 and keep my Flamethrower thank you very much!! Hardcore TD is the best mode, hardcore is the only way to play on this and COD4 cause all those noobs who run around with juggernaut and LM and Sub Machine guns stand no chance, plus if you wanna use a bolt action rifle you have to play hardcore other wise in the other modes you stand no chance! 22 days left!!
Andrew: I haven’t leveled up enough to get the Bouncing Betty’s, but they are similar to claymores right? If so, I can’t wait to get them. Also, as far as prestige, I don’t know anything about it, but I found it extremely pointless in CoD4 since it just gave you a different icon by your name… stupid. So if there is more incentive to hit it in CoD5, I may consider it.
As far as i know so far, you get an extra create a class when you prestige. Not for every prestige, its something like the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th. i probably got that wrong, but you get the idea.
yeah TY that is what i saw while looking at the menus. Yeah the bouncing betty’s are quite fun the best is putting them in the water on the makin level and watching them shoot up out of the water and kill a person, gives you a good laugh!! I just hope they fix the glich on the roundhouse level. Sadly thou Fable II comes out on tuesday so I will prob be playing that till COD5 comes out, I hope they uncap the beta some more and let you rank up a little higher say like 30 or 35 would be nice.
oh yeah i forgot the Bouncing Betty’s i think are better than claymores, for one they are not limited to 1 direction, they are a landmine that when stepped on they shoot up in the air about chest high and shoot hundreds of little metal balls in a 360 pattern so there is no running threw them like claymores in COD4 plus they are a lot harder to spot and destroy compared to the claymores of MW. just a little info on them! wanna see them in action watch the end of the movie The Generals Daughter the guy at the end steps on one to detonate it! pretty cool to see!!
yeah that glitch on roundhouse is so gay!! the only time i ever use it is to kill people if they are under there. then i come back out.
there are noob tubes by the way. there grenades that are stuck in the end of your rifle and shot like a noob tube
just some clarification. artillary are large caliber cannons chambered for explosive shells. they are fired in vollys and arched. meaning they can hit targets from miles away. They are an essential part to any operating military. also these “grande lanchers” are actually rifle granades. Rifle granades are small explosive charges placed on barrel of an rifle blocking the chaimber. a blank (non firing cartrige)is inserted in the gun and fired. the gas from the round forces the charge off the barrel thus propelling it. So far the beta is great in my oppinion and major upgrades over call of duty 4 include a massivly increased gore system. Instead of just falling over when an airstrike hit (or in COD5 artillary) players are reduced to small meatty chunks if they are close enough to the explosion. also shotguns are capable of blowing off limbs and also (if point blank)simply blowing someone to pieces. another nice upgrade is that if you are aiming next to cover (say your standing over a box) the cover will actually steady your weapon, reducing the recoil from firing. im looking for other small details and if you have anymore questions, go ahead and send me a message on live.
see you on the battlefield (and if your lucky enough the beta)
mccgiver
R3APER: Thanks for that, I didn’t realize that the cover system worked like that, that’s pretty cool. And yeah, I noticed that I was losing limbs when getting shot, which is pretty cool.
New Update fir Beat they raised the cap to level 44 no, so you get a couple of new weapons and perks! just a lil over 2 weeks till it comes out so excited
how do u get the beta code in the first place? if so is it even free?
btw send me an answer on xbox live my name is xIBleedOrangex. thanks!
so word on the street from Game stop is that you can not pre order the special edition anymore, and if you do when you play multiplayer you will have a icon above you thats says VIP, plus there was supposed to be a map added to the beta called Airfield but they did not put it in. Plus there was a update which did 2 things i am more sure of, 1 they fixed the glitch on roundhouse, and 2 you can use the bi pod when lying down now with the LMG. just over a week! yeah
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