By ISAAC SERRATO
Staff Writer
Call of Duty, World at War was released in 2008, with its premise being a WW2 shooter. Sounds basic right? Well not exactly, the game was dark with horror undertones, the game was extremely graphic and brutal. The game also had the guts (which a lot of games lack nowadays except for a few) to show WW2 as a bloodbath, war crimes, and also heaven-forbid. Nazi flags, symbols, with even Nazi broadcasts, speeches are included in the multiplayer. The music is unique with a heavy, atmospheric tone that sends chills down the bone. WAW also was the COD game that started zombies, being hidden as an easter egg as a post-credits level after you beat the game.
WAW, the campaign was dark, gritty, scary, brutal, with shock factors. WAW cutscenes were actual combat footage from the front lines of WW2 showing people being shot, burned or innocents being killed in war crimes. The cutscenes also showed facts of the battles, operations in which the soldiers had to fight. In the campaign you first play as Joe Miller, a silent Marine Raider who fights with his special forces squad in the Pacific theater, fighting the brutal Imperial Japanese army. The game sets the tone immediately the game is no joke with the first opening cutscene Miller has to see his squad get tortured, killed right in front of him by the Imperial Japanese army. The Imperial Japanese was well known for its war crimes, brutality towards civilians, soldiers who were caught. Torturing them, depriving them of food, water, killing them for being “cowards” of those who surrendered, massacring civilians which actually gets shown in the game in a cutscene (Treyarch actually got footage of Japanese troops mass burying Chinese people alive, which was shown in the game). The tone is dark, scary with neutral colors, or gray-dark colors with night missions being extremely dark, cloudy days being oppressive, day missions providing a false sense of comfort. Then the game switches it up mid-way by making you play as the Soviets fighting the Nazis in 1942. Where beloved character Reznov shows up as an injured sniper in Vendetta. The Soviet character you play as is Dimitri (a character that shows up again in Black Ops 1), you fight the Nazis with Renzov as you try to take back your country from the Nazis. What was interesting is that the cutscenes for the Soviets show the war crimes the Nazis did, showing Nazis hanging kids, shooting civilians, burning down villages. Later as you progress as the Soviets you start to question if the Soviets are really the good guys as we are often told as you see the Soviets shoot prisoners, lynch Germans, with going overkill on the German soldiers. This actually did happen where Soviet troops were caught shooting prisoners, making German soldiers suffer, with brutal tactics often being encouraged to kill the “scum”. Then the game jumps back and forth between the Marine and Soviet levels. With Miller seeing his squad slowly die out, the Japanese became increasingly brutal to fight the Americans. With the music getting darker, eventually, the music turns into metal in the most brutal missions to show the mental state of the characters is declining.
The gameplay is also disgusting with shotguns, high-caliber machine guns, or snipers. You can blow off limbs of enemy soldiers, with before dying the enemy will grab them, then scream in pain for a little then die. Injuring enemy troops would cause them to drop on their backs, triggering them to bring out a pistol to put up a last stand. Throwing a grenade will send troops, with their limbs flying, with the chance to hear them screaming, grabbing their wounds. Or cooking a grenade, then throwing it, the enemy troops will try to pick it up to throw it back only to blow their arms off. There is the most brutal weapon, the flamethrower as it provides a slow death, causing troops to run on fire screaming. The Japanese troops have two special attacks where they snipe from a distance in trees hiding, tying themselves (which they actually did). Or the Banzai charge where all the troops will charge you fearlessly.
The music is also something special, with the music being terrifying, dark, extremely gritty (fun fact, the cod zombies music and sound effects would be based on the WAW soundtrack and its sound effects). The music at the start of the game is tense, dark but the more the game goes on, the more electronic, bombastic, horror-themed, eventually featuring guitar work, even turning into metal sequences with heavy riffs in the most intense fighting sequences in the game. The Pacific levels often feature folk instruments, flutes, with a guitar later on to show the decline of the troop’s morale. The Soviet levels’ music is haunting but becomes unrecognizable as the spooky female Russian vocals get replaced with heavy metal riffs, industrial music with voices in the background in the late stages of the game, trying to show the player through music how terrifying the Soviet front was. Mixed in with the tone, combat, you don’t have action. You have a bloody horror game. Eviction is a perfect example with the game starting with haunting vocals with electronic music then when the level has heavy combat, heavy metal riffs start playing. Mixed in with the intense CQB, tone, brutal gameplay, bleak dialogue bombed out setting of Berlin, the game feels like a horror game as you’re not fighting the Nazis. It feels like you’re simply trying to protect, hold yourself together.
Unlike Vanguard, along with Battlefield V being PC, playing it safe, or even changing history. WAW is bleak, hardcore about its story, deception of WW2. The Pacific levels start out with Marines with high hopes, slowly losing morale, as they question leadership, become frustrated, even with a hardened character who has the most combat experience starts to lose it. With the final level for the Marines, if you choose one Marine or another, they fully snap seeing their friend die. If the young Marine lives he becomes racist, resentful of the Japanese, depressed he loses a good friend. If you save the old Marine, the hardened veteran becomes angry, resentful that you choose him instead of young Maine. He then confronts you saying how he doesn’t respect, trust you anymore because of what you did. At the Soviet levels, you are pushed to the limit as you can decide if you want to commit war crimes or not with Petrov (a pacifist) judging you for your actions. Reznov along with other characters pressure you into killing German soldiers while Petrov suggests letting them be as they are already defeated.
Don’t forget as WAW gave us zombies. With famous maps like Nacht Der Untoten, classic characters like Richtofen, Samantha, Takeo, Tank Dempsey, Nikolai. Easter eggs, Easter egg songs, wonder weapons, the classic Ray Gun, perks. Meanwhile, the new COD zombies are…forgettable.
The multiplayer was fun in WAW (but now it’s full of hackers) with interesting maps. The shocking mechanic of blowing off limbs of characters with shotguns, bouncing betties, shocked parents across America.
Vanguard compared to this game is too PC, soft, bland, unoriginal, copy-pasted while WAW actually had time, effort, with a development team/studio that actually cared for a decent game. Unfortunately, a lot of games suffer from being too soft talking about such a serious topic, often becoming preachy, being bland as the team took shortcuts to meet quotas, hoping to fill the lines of their pockets with money. To ask a good question, what didn’t happen to world war 2 games, WHAT HAPPENED TO GAMING IN GENERAL?!