With Call of Duty: World at War’s initiation into the Call of Duty franchise, comparisons and preferences have been widely expressed and slung around unnecessarily frequently. Back when Call of Duty 3 came out, the talk wasn’t nearly as heavy, and the winner of the battle was clearly Call of Duty 2 over 3 (or at least in my niche of friends). But now, Treyarch managed to, and I have no idea how, totally confuse the hell out of players as to the simple question of “which game is better.” It’s hard to say, really, since the two are, at their roots, the same game, albeit visual aesthetics are greatly improved and, well... all the inherit stuff that comes from being in World War II again.
There are differences between the two, though, some significant and some not, so I’ve made list of them. Since World at War is merely the same game with several new features in a blatant attempt to one-up Infinity Ward’s game, I’ll be structuralizing this list to display the best features; contrarily, for Call of Duty 4’s list, it will be comprised of features that couldn’t translate over to World at War; from either design choices, or being 70 years in the future, they will be mentioned.
Call of Duty: World at War:
4. More improved and revised perks, different weapons, grenades, etc. – I’m not going to lie, I definitely dig using the older (and newly introduced) weaponry – submachine guns specifically, to me, are more satisfying to use than automatic rifles in Call of Duty 4. Molotov cocktails, poisonous gas, sticky grenades, flares and so on are just more diverse than CoD4’s selection, each providing a noticeably different strategic use in the battlefield, and each is more fun to hurl, wouldn’t you say? As for perks, they’re mostly the same thing as before, with some interesting tweaks and add-ons (such as the one that actually lets you throw back a grenade without it blowing up in your face, making you feel like a douche), but the old ones are still in play and have a monopoly on their respective perk slots, so new ones are virtually useless or ignored. Even martyrdom is still there – gross, right?
3. The Flamethrower – Flamethrowers are awesome, right? Everyone loves flamethrowers, and everyone loves using them. If there are people in this world whom dislike using flamethrowers, they’re probably boring, and are fascinated by advanced mathematics simply because it’s mathematics. But flamethrowers are hard to come by and tedious to carry around, so the next best thing to a real flamethrower is being Level 65, wherein the game provides you with one. The only problem is that Level 65 is the last level, and the only ethical time to use it is during the grind to max out Level 65 for the next prestige; begging the question: to prestige or not to prestige, right? I’ve seen a flamethrower only once in multiplayer, and it was fairly overpowered in territory game types, but otherwise it’s not completely worth it, as you’re giving up most of the reason as to why you’re even playing. It might have been a bit better if it was unlocked at Level 63 or sometime, maybe. Still, though… it’s a sweet-ass flamethrower.
2. Vehicles – By vehicles I mean tanks, and by tanks I mean blowing the opposing force’s limbs off, perchance with a turret-clad buddy on top of you. I was surprised to see that vehicles had a fair balance of being overpowered while not being a complete joy kill when I first started playing. They’re still pretty cheap and overpowered, though; luckily, hiding from them is reasonably effortless, while killing them may possibly take a bazooka rocket, or four… and a sticky grenade, and… more rockets, maybe. There’s also the ability to fight fire with fire in a tank-to-tank showdown, but it’s honestly some of the most boring stuff I’ve had to do, whereas the only exciting thing about it is blasting the rival tank into heaps of scrap metal and being half-broken yourself.
1. Dogs – Calling in the dogs, to me, is the single-most game-shifting, strategy-altering feature that World at War actually did better than Call of Duty 4. In last year’s game, calling in a helicopter was completely monotonous (excluding the huge influx of + (numbers) in the middle of your screen) and the only way for the opposite team to defend themselves was to shoot it once or twice with a rocket or shooting countless rounds of lead into it. But dogs, they’re useful to everyone on your side. They’re still overpowered enough to compare to that of a helicopter, and provide enough satisfaction to feel that your kill streak was not in vain, while not being such an unstoppable force towards the opposite team, keeping it fair yet chaotic. If there’s one feature I would definitely transfer over to Infinity Ward’s next game, it would without a doubt be the dogs, or at least something like dogs.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:
4. The ‘Modern’ in Warfare – I always found the way game media treats WWII games to be something I could always criticize them for, equivalent to how people criticize Fox News and other mainstream media outlets. But after a while, it agreeably did become a stale genre that we’ve all seen, we’ve all played and we’re all well-acquainted with and pretty uninterested by (WaW is no exception), so the benefit of existing in a modern world does have its inherit appealing differences. In World at War you can’t experience a numerous amount things that come with being in a current-day scenario, and even though Treyarch has done an exceptional job at keeping players still well-grounded in the foundation Infinity Ward had set, at the end of the day it could never be as good.
3. Better designed maps, in size and structure – If you’re like me, or if you’re oblivious to the subpar map design in World at War, you’ve surely noticed the sheer size of some of these maps. Depending on the game type, in this case deathmatch-like game types, there’s times where I’ve felt like I was definitely spending more time looking for conflict rather than actually encountering it. Even in game types like, say, Headquarters or War, the capture zones are so large and so badly adjusted that I’ve been able to get in unfair blind spots and still keep capturing the zone. It’s definitely not a strong area for Treyarch, and though the maps are gorgeous – just not gorgeously well-built.
2. Feeling less cheated – I can’t even remember how many times I’ve swung a dagger onto a dog a split second after he leaped for me, only to be bitten and dazed, unable to recover from the previous bite, then try and look down to swing at him but it turned out to be too late as I was staring at a Nemesis Kill Cam. I can’t actually count a lot of moments where I felt the game was screwing me over technically, which were many. In Call of Duty 4, I hardly felt like I was being cheated – every death felt as if it were my own fault, and no one else’s.
1. Balance, quantity and quality of weaponry – Another unnecessarily obvious statement that I will care to make is that Call of Duty 4’s weapon library and balance are immensely superior to that of Call of Duty: World at War’s. [Quantity / Quality] – With only a handful of weapons that actually differentiate from each other in WaW, it’s hard to care about more than one or two preferred arms, but in Call of Duty 4, there’s a large arsenal in each category (minus shotguns). [Balance] Not only that, but each weapon is balanced and has little importance whether you’re a high level or a lower level. Call of Duty 4’s weapon balance is so fine-tuned that you could (and some do) use first level weapons and be completely successful throughout the whole multiplayer experience. Not so in World at War, sadly.
If I had to say which release was better, it wouldn’t have to take me long to tell you it would be Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. World at War isn’t as good, but it’s good in itself, but only because Modern Warfare was so brilliant and only because it nailed everything so perfectly. In the end, when everything is said and done, World at War is Modern Warfare, updated, with a very retro trench coat covering it.
It’s ultimately up to you as to what you’re willing to spend the rest of 2009 playing; this list can only show you what I’ve seen as game-makers and game-killers. If you’re still asking yourself which to choose, I suggest you find a copy of World at War and play it for about 10 levels, and then go back to Call of Duty 4 and play it however long you wish. Whichever makes you feel better should answer your question.
