Call of Duty 2 Impressions

Ripstar · Post by **Ripstar** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 10:18 pm

Anyone got it yet?

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:21 pm

Got it but have not played much as I was trying to finish up Quake 4 (which I did today). Have put in maybe 2 hours or so.

My initial thoughts - basically more of the same. Graphics are better (particularly character models), but otherwise the gameplay is nearly identical. One major difference (which I'm not sure I like right now) is the health system. Basically there are no medkits or anything - your health seems to recharge over time, so as long as you don't sustain massive damage at once you can pretty much get shot hundreds of times throughout the course of a level. In one sense the lack of a health meter/medkits makes it more immersive, but then again your superhero-like ability to absorb damage goes right back and kills it again.

The other thing I don't like so far is the (*&(*&(*# grenades. Every enemy seems to toss grenades now. Since you won't normally die from gunfire now, grenades are about the only thing you have to fear. And fear them you shall, because you'll spend a good deal of your time (at least in the first campaign) dodging grenades. It's like they wanted to show off their grenade warning system, so they armed every Nazi with about 50 grenades and had them hurl them at every opportunity.

I have not yet noticed any Nazi spawning (which almost killed the expansion for me), but they do send an almost ridiculous amount of enemies at you. Even if there isn't true spawning, I have noticed that beating the levels tends to be easier if you keep pushing forward, though, since otherwise your teammates tend to be content to just hang back with you.

I'm still on the fence about whether I'm going to take it back (especially since I'm really leaning towards picking up CoV.) The only thing stopping me is that I finished and really enjoyed CoD 1 and the expansion, and I'm such a completist I'd love to beat this one too. I will say that the intensity and great level design of the original are back in full force - if you loved the original gameplay you will certainly love this one. If you're expecting a true sequel in terms of major improvements to the formula, then I'd say you might be a bit disappointed.

Ripstar · Post by **Ripstar** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 10:42 am

YK thanks for the headsup.

I really liked Call of Duty but not so much the expansion, too much spawning and to tight on the rails for me. Sounds like this is more like the first game, in level design, which is ok with me.

JayG · Post by **JayG** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:05 am

Resting is supposed to re-charge your health, least that's what they said on Voodoo Extreme. Insane amount of games out at the moment.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 12:18 pm

Yeah, what happens is if you sustain enough damage to be in the "danger zone" then your screen will glow red around the edges. This means "take cover or die!" Taking cover for a few seconds will restore you back to fighting shape. You can take several bullet hits before hitting the danger zone though.

The Russian campaign was really short, but I'm now deep into the British campaign and things have picked up. The abundance of grenades is still kind of annoying, but the British campaign has been a lot of fun. It's all desert battle so it alternates between tank campaigns and fierce street fighting. I've enjoyed it mostly because the African theater is rarely covered in these FPS WW2 games. So far the British campaign has been much longer than the Russian one.

The game can still be pretty tough, even on normal and with the revamped health system. So don't think just because you can take more hits that it's a cake walk. On most levels you will be getting barraged with enemy fire from multiple angles, so you have to move forward cautiously.

I've pretty much confirmed that there's no respawning (at least as far as I've played). However, there are still invisible "checkpoints" that will trigger new waves of enemies. Generally speaking, however, you can clear an area and as long as you don't cross the trigger point you can eventually eliminate all resistance.

The game is a bit less linear this time around, but don't get the illusion that it's significantly free-form. The extent of the new level design freedom is occasionally it will give you multiple objectives and you can choose what you want to take out first. It's a pretty limited sort of "freedom," but in these heavily scripted games I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

So far, aside from a few minor frustrations, I'm having a good time with it. It's at least on par with the original, if not really revolutionary.

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 12:44 pm

I don't own the game, but hopefully will by Xmas. What I don't like about the game is the health system. When I played the demo, I recalled telling myself, am I ever going to die? It made it too easy.

I wished they used the system that MOH PA used, having medics made it at least more realistic than finding health packs on the ground, or staying still to have your health meter recharge.

Ripstar · Post by **Ripstar** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 12:00 pm

Duzzent seem to be much interest in this game.,but I liked the first one so I think I will likely pick this one up.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 2:04 pm

If you liked the first one Ripstar, you'll have just as much fun with this one. I guess people are just sort of burned out on WW2 shooters, but I am having a great time with it. It's more of the same, but in a good way.

rrmorton · Post by **rrmorton** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 2:29 pm

Ripstar wrote:Duzzent seem to be much interest in this game...

Yep. F.E.A.R. plus Quake 4 plus ten zillion WWII shooters plus coming out on the same day as Civ 4 = who cares? I bought CoD2 out of some sense of obligation but I never opened it which speaks for how much I care about it. I intend to return it and wait until there's more room in my game rotation and less $ on the price tag. (Alternately, I might end up getting this for the Xbox 360.)

whispa · Post by **whispa** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 2:36 pm

I enjoyed the first CoD single player but was underwhelmed by the multiplayer. I am currently playing FEAR single player and with Civ 4 and AOE3, the negative feedback of the CoD2 multiplayer (and lack of time) put me off from buying it for now.

neofit · Post by **neofit** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 3:46 pm

I hear they don't have quicksaves, not even any kind of regular saves. I am not buying games that use the checkpoint save system. They better find another way of extending the game length.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 4:23 pm

That's true - no saves. Though the auto-saves are pretty frequent. It saves after every objective, and sometimes between objectives if there is an extended period of time between them.

I am usually a "no save, no buy" type of gamer myself, but this one quite honestly hasn't been that bad (I'm playing on regular difficulty). I can only think of one spot where I had to keep replaying a sequence, but it was the type of sequence in which I don't think the ability to manually save would have helped me a great deal anyway.

Bertran · Post by **Bertran** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 4:36 pm

rrmorton wrote:Yep. F.E.A.R. plus Quake 4 plus ten zillion WWII shooters plus coming out on the same day as Civ 4 = who cares? I bought CoD2 out of some sense of obligation but I never opened it which speaks for how much I care about it.

And yet you still bought it. Bravo.

neofit · Post by **neofit** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:29 pm

YellowKing wrote:I can only think of one spot where I had to keep replaying a sequence, but it was the type of sequence in which I don't think the ability to manually save would have helped me a great deal anyway.

Hmmm, I remember one particular derelict building in CoD1, in Russia, where Germans kept running in from every hole. It would have been unplayable without a save-anywhere system.

Incendiary Lemon · Post by **Incendiary Lemon** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 6:20 pm

CoD2 auto saves on a what appears to be a thirty second clock. Dying doesn't care much of a burden actually.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:55 pm

Hmmm, I remember one particular derelict building in CoD1, in Russia, where Germans kept running in from every hole. It would have been unplayable without a save-anywhere system.

The last level of the Russian campaign in Cod2 is pretty similar to that level, but it only took about three tries to beat it. The sequel is simply not as frustratingly hard as the original (though still challenging enough so far to be fun).

Papageno · Post by **Papageno** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 10:05 pm

I'm very sorry to hear that CoD2 has no "save anywhere." That bites. If the Autosaves are frequent enough I suppose it'll be OK, though. I don't have a rig right now that will do it justice anyway. Maybe in a couple of months.

Ripstar · Post by **Ripstar** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:03 pm

YellowKing-are the specs for COD2 much different the COD?

My rigs getting a little long in the tooth but will play COD1 with all settings at the max. fine.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:28 pm

Specs:

Minimum - P4 1.4ghz
256MB RAM
64MB Video

Recommended - P4 3.2
1GB RAM
256MB Video

One word of caution since my last post. I just hit the US campaign, and the difficulty ramps up BIG TIME. In fact, on the first US mission it got quite frustrating because there was a long time between autosaves and you were deep in a world of hurt. So I guess my comments about the autosave apply at least to the first 2/3ds of the game, but for the US campaign yeah.....quicksave would sure be nice.

The "30-second rule" of autosaves does not apply for every level, so be forewarned.

I'm still having a lot of fun though. I think with the new health system, the ability to manual save would just make the game much too easy. I know, I know, give the player the choice - but I can see their side of it too. Keep in mind this one was designed with the Xbox 360 in mind, so like a lot of games nowadays it seems they opted to build it around a console save system.

Another word of warning - like the original, it's a fairly short game.

Zofog · Post by **Zofog** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 4:16 pm

On the subject of game saves....

I was playing the single player campaign and had just finished the El Alamein mission. During the transition to the next mission (El Daba?) my system crashed and had to be hard booted. When I fired up CoD2 again, my profile was there but all of my progress had been lost. The only mission available was the starting Russian mission. All my save games are still there but for some reason it doesn't recognize I have ever played the game before.

This sucks as I was really enjoying the game. I have tried modifying the .cfg file to make it look like I completed the missions but then it fails the crc check and a message appears on the screen that indicates I am in "cheat mode". I've emailed Activision support but so far no reply.

~ Zofog

AttAdude · Post by **AttAdude** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:46 pm

Zofog wrote:On the subject of game saves....

I was playing the single player campaign and had just finished the El Alamein mission. During the transition to the next mission (El Daba?) my system crashed and had to be hard booted. When I fired up CoD2 again, my profile was there but all of my progress had been lost. The only mission available was the starting Russian mission. All my save games are still there but for some reason it doesn't recognize I have ever played the game before.

This sucks as I was really enjoying the game. I have tried modifying the .cfg file to make it look like I completed the missions but then it fails the crc check and a message appears on the screen that indicates I am in "cheat mode". I've emailed Activision support but so far no reply.

~ Zofog

There are cheats that will help you if you look hard enough. My SATA HDD decided to die on me 3 days ago, and i used the cheats to get back where i was out. unfortunatly the place where i get cracks and cheats is not propper for this site, so if you need a URL you will have to send me an Email.

qp · Post by qp » Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:49 pm

YellowKing wrote:Got it but have not played much as I was trying to finish up Quake 4 (which I did today). Have put in maybe 2 hours or so.

My initial thoughts - basically more of the same. Graphics are better (particularly character models), but otherwise the gameplay is nearly identical. One major difference (which I'm not sure I like right now) is the health system. Basically there are no medkits or anything - your health seems to recharge over time, so as long as you don't sustain massive damage at once you can pretty much get shot hundreds of times throughout the course of a level. In one sense the lack of a health meter/medkits makes it more immersive, but then again your superhero-like ability to absorb damage goes right back and kills it again.

The other thing I don't like so far is the (*&(*&(*# grenades. Every enemy seems to toss grenades now. Since you won't normally die from gunfire now, grenades are about the only thing you have to fear. And fear them you shall, because you'll spend a good deal of your time (at least in the first campaign) dodging grenades. It's like they wanted to show off their grenade warning system, so they armed every Nazi with about 50 grenades and had them hurl them at every opportunity.

I have not yet noticed any Nazi spawning (which almost killed the expansion for me), but they do send an almost ridiculous amount of enemies at you. Even if there isn't true spawning, I have noticed that beating the levels tends to be easier if you keep pushing forward, though, since otherwise your teammates tend to be content to just hang back with you.

I'm still on the fence about whether I'm going to take it back (especially since I'm really leaning towards picking up CoV.) The only thing stopping me is that I finished and really enjoyed CoD 1 and the expansion, and I'm such a completist I'd love to beat this one too. I will say that the intensity and great level design of the original are back in full force - if you loved the original gameplay you will certainly love this one. If you're expecting a true sequel in terms of major improvements to the formula, then I'd say you might be a bit disappointed.

Take it back

What planet are you shopping on???

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 5:40 pm

I hear this new version is real popular with the ladies...

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 5:43 pm

Take it back What planet are you shopping on???

I've got friends in low places.

Incidentally I didn't take it back. I have taken a bit of a break from it but hopefully plan to finish it up next week when I get some time off.