The only CoD: WaW topics I've seen are people asking whether they should buy it, followed by sentence-long answers by others who have bought the game. Having found the game disappointing, I felt that I had to make a lengthy review to go over Treyarch's mistakes.
Having got the game yesterday, gaming websites have praised it so I was expecting a game that could be as good as the fourth installment of the series. The last time Treyarch made a Call of Duty game was the third one, since they alternate turns with Infinity Ward to create the sequel. The third game wasn't as good as the second and nowhere near as great as the fourth. When I started playing Modern Warfare, I was instantly drawn in by the campaign and spent the whole afternoon playing until I had to go to bed. The next morning I finished it just before lunch, because I had to get to the end. World at War, however, was not like this at all.
In Modern Warfare, the first time I died was a few levels into the game. When I started dying, I was always given a nice quote about war and ready to learn from my mistake before the checkpoint loaded. In World at War, I first died half a minute after being handed a gun. I was left shocked and even worse, Treyarch decided to abandon war quotes. My character lied there in several second of silence before the the screen dimmed into black, and I had no idea how I died. Brought back to the start of the game, I managed to get to the next few checkpoints before something new happened. I had no idea what to do next and ran aimlessly about wasting ammunition before finding out what I had to do. Eventually I finished the first level and I couldn't have felt worse about it.
I try to finish a game's campaign before I forget about it, so I went on with more levels throughout the day. I started to realise that World at War is a lot like Modern Warfare, because my first level as a Russian had me sneaking around with a sniper rifle while a higher ranked soldier was ordering me to kill some important Nazi officer. Sounds similar to a certain level in the last game, doesn't it? This level was also really bad, since I could only see darkness most of the time and I still don't know exactly when I had killed the officer. Instead of knowing exactly when my target was dead in Modern Warfare, I was randomly shooting at the enemy until I got the right person. When I finish this game, I definately won't replay most of these levels.
In another level, I was controlling the guns of an amphibian plane, just like the gunship part in Modern Warfare. The plane is even introduced in a similar way, as all the guns are pointed out with details about them. I enjoyed the gunship level last time, but World at War made this part confusing and had no excitement at all. I was just shooting at boats and the occasional plane that I couldn't shoot down, so there's another bad level that eventually ended with no sense of accomplishment.
There is one level, however, that is worse than any other level that I have currently played. In this particular level I had a flamethrower and just had to burn out the enemy. It was simple enough, but there were a few troubles. First of all, I had already used the flamethrower in previous level and it's only fun for the first ten kills, then actually I started feeling sorry for anyone slowly burning to death with their arms failing and screaming painfully. This level also had bullets coming at me from everywhere, and there was one checkpoint that I had to replay seven times because I kept dying. For the first time, I was actually cursing at a game and wanting to break the disc in half.
Another level with a tank was very hard to control and at time I couldn't hit a target because it was hiding too far behind a hill, so I was glad when that one ended as well. Between the occasional level I tried the online multiplayer, since Team Fortress 2 had stopped me from playing the Modern Warfare version. It's certainly better than the campaign, but it's hard to enjoy since nobody sticks as a team and kills happen by opportunity. So far my death/kill ratio is 2:1, since I don't shoot at everything that moves. A lot of people don't seem to check for green text above your head and will waste half a clip on someone before they realise it's a team mate. Oh well, I might stick with online play and make it to level 65 one day.
In all, I don't recommend buying World at War. I won't give a number out of ten, I'm just giving my personal experience and listing where Treyarch went wrong. I also got Fable II, which gets boring after a while but can be better than World at War during points in the game. I also wanted Far Cry 2, but apparently that isn't good either except for the map editor, which is the main reason I would have bought it. Seriously, wait for a game that you know will be good, mine being Rock Band 2 which comes to the UK next week. Also, remember that the new dashboard experience comes out on the 19th!
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