Call of Duty: World at War (PC)

Call of Duty: World at War is critically under appreciated. By that, I mean the slights it gets for being popular. Some too-cool-for-school game critics think that CoD:WaW can’t be good because regular people enjoy it.

If only they could see past their indie-rock-pete-esque hearts to the shiny gooey filling that is an improved and different Call of Duty.

Improvements on CoD4:

  • Nearly the entire single player campaign can be played cooperatively online.
  • In-game friends list, including invites.
  • You can squad up with your buddies fairly easily during team-based matches.
  • Prestige, previously only available to console players, is now available for win-folk.
  • Large, open multiplayer maps enable a different style of play. Bolt-action, single shot rifle kills are now reasonable. As are tanks and other changes to gameplay style. This might not appeal to everyone, but it is a definitely visible change to anyone who has sunk time into CoD4’s multiplayer campaign
  • The Flamethrower, flame tank, and molotov cocktail all bring a new kind of area denial  effect to play.
  • Nazi zombie mode.

You broke it:

  • Co-op isn’t continous, you’re automatically sent back to the lobby and the map is reset to the first map (Semper Fi). Good luck remembering the name of the map you were on.
  • Multiplayer squads aren’t retained between map changes. Boo!
  • The game seems to crash more than is usual.
  • Should have been released on steam on the day of the retail PC release.
  • Still different binaries for multiplayer and singleplayer.
  • While you can invite friends to the multiplayer game you’re in, you can’t see what game your friends are in without having to accept an invite. That is to say, you must request an invite to get to that server.
  • The name tags in multiplayer are colored red or green for differentiating  friend or foe. I can’t see those colors.