It’s the middle of WWII and you find yourself at the frontline of the offense in this realistic war shooter Call of Duty 2. Once again the creators have managed to capture the feel of the battlefield in this great game to let you see what happened in the war.

Graphics: 7 / 10
The graphics, though nothing ground breaking, definitely do the job. The explosions not only look, but also feel, as if they are right next to you. The lighting varies, but it doesn’t affect the screen as much as it should. This definitely makes it a little less enjoyable when you go from daylight to a building with no lights and you can see everything in the same light. The smoke effects, however, are incredible and act almost like real smoke. It covers thick and blocks vision, but it doesn’t move at all when someone goes through it. There are no wind effects at all. The weapons are by far the best graphically. They look exactly like real life replicas of the guns that they are supposed to be.

Sound: 9.5 / 10
The sound in this game is one of the stand-out features. All of the weapons sound like they do in real life. Even without surround sound, you can hear whether or not it is coming from the front, left, right, or back. Voices are easily understood, but can be drowned out by the sounds of the battlefield, which is nice and realistic. There are times though, when this just doesn’t work because you need to hear an important objective or detail.

Controls: 10 / 10
The controls are very simplistic and within five minutes of playing, the controls seemed very familiar and there was no question of what buttons did what. It follows simple first-person shooter controls with a few variations, so if you pick the controller up having played first-person shooters before, you will easily master these controls at the start. They are also simple enough that if you first pick up the game having no experience with shooters, you will easily grasp them.

Gameplay: 9.5 / 10
To sum it up in a single word, the gameplay is awesome. The A.I. is a strong opponent on all difficulty settings and acts with great precision and strategy. Soldiers will retreat to regroup, then come take defensive positions where they can hit you, but you cannot easily hit them.

The game plays just like any other game in this genre, but the difficulty and the objectives make it much more enjoyable then other games like Halo 2 which get repetitive over time. The only downside is that it is, of course, a story we already know, so we can predict how the game flows.

Overall: 9 / 10
Overall, this is a great WWII game that, unlike others, will hold your interest and make you want more. Once again the Call of Duty series has left me in awe with their great installment in the series. I recommend picking this up if you like shooters and enjoy an overall fun challenging game.