Call of Duty 2: Big Red One review

Let’s clear one thing up first. It’s not Call of Duty 2: Big RED One, it’s Call of Duty 2: Big Red ONE, as in the famous first American infantry division. So you can stop thinking about what might be big and red right now, leaving us free to get on with it. The review, that is.

Anyway, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is not the Call of Duty 2 that you know from the PC or the X360. It’s an independent game for PS2, Xbox and GameCube, which concentrates on the 1st Infantry Division of the American Army, one of the most famed and battle-hardened American divisions during WWII, and other wars for that matter. It’s nice to see a game that doesn’t use the 101st Airborne again.

A legacy to live up to

Big Red One got its name from the division’s shoulder patch, which had a rather large number 1 on it, and you will get to be with the division during its toughest battles against the Axis powers during the game. It will demand a lot of you as an inexperienced private, because the division was awarded no less than 20,752 medals during the war. Big Red One begins with a dramatic mission in Western Europe in 1944, and then shifts to 1942, where you get to fight Rommel’s Desert Rats. From Northern Africa, you go to Sicily, and then you take part in the push from Normandy into Germany. You will be assigned to the same unit for the duration of the game, in opposition to Call of Duty 2, which had three different campaigns.

As always, the missions cover a broad spectrum, and you must do anything from taking an airfield to defending a bombed-out Italian bunker against a German tank assault. The Italian missions work particularly well, and seem very expansive and lengthy.

Sadly, there are also the traditional tank missions, which are clearly one of the weakest points in the game. Also, I can only shake my head at the mission where you must take down an entire squadron of Me109s in your B-24 bomber, as well as bombing both German naval vessels and a train station. This kind of thing does not belong in a series that usually takes its historical accuracy so seriously.

On the other hand, I really like the many missions that have you traversing bombed-out cities, participating in intense firefights. Another positive point is the huge arsenal of weapons in the game. Both the Italian and French weaponry (you fight against the French Vichy troops in the first few missions) is entirely new to the series.

Silence on the Western Front

After having experienced Call of Duty 2’s brilliant Battle Chatter system, Big Red One comes across as a disappointment. Yes, your fellow soldiers talk a bit, and the Axis soldiers will shout once in a while, but generally, all is too quiet on the front. It’s really a shame that Infinity Ward and Treyarch haven’t transferred the newest features from Call of Duty 2 to Big Red One. Weapon sounds also lack punch, and only the stationary machineguns make enough of a racquet to be able to disturb resident creatures of the female persuasion (which is of course the standard to judge by in FPS games).

Another neglected feature is the AI, which disappoints a lot in comparison with Call of Duty 2. Here, we once again encounter wooden enemy soldiers that will get up and fire away like automatons after being shot. No reason to move or stay down, it seems, maybe they just know that a Garand will inflict grievous damage no matter where the shots hit.

Those sneaky Germans

Having said that, I must make it clear that the game did manage to build up a quite good atmosphere for me, and the idea of following the same unit throughout the game gives you a stronger emotional bond to your comrades. When a nasty German hit my fellow soldier Vic, prompting the orchestral score to flare up a bit, I couldn’t help getting the shivers. And the game controls well too, giving us another example at a very playable console shooter.

Graphically, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One does the job well, and the city levels are particularly impressive with their high level of detail and nice textures. As always, we get nice visual effects for events like grenade impacts, and sometimes the screen will shake so much that you’ll think that the person living in the flat above you is punishing her dance mat again. Naturally, by now it shows that the Xbox is running with a modified GeForce 3 GPU, and that the old Call of Duty engine is getting long in the tooth. But it still delivers reasonably detailed soldier models and weapons.

We want more of the good stuff

While the singleplayer campaign does have its moments, the multiplayer element basically falls right through. Technically, Xbox Live works as well as always and you’ll quickly get into a game, but then nothing much happens, really. Big Red One comes across as rather flat and uninspiring online, and even though there’s room for 16 players, most maps will feel quite empty. In short: don’t buy this game for the online element.

Big Red One is a transitional game that will leave you hungry after what the real Call of Duty 2 has to offer. It resembles the old Call of Duty too much to feel new in any way, and as such we can only recommend it to the hardcore fanbase. If you belong in that category, you can feel free to add another point to the final score.

Source: Boomtown Denmark
English version by: Jonatan A. Allin (neonwolf)