Call of Duty 2

In 2003, Infinty Ward racked up numerous awards for its rookie effort, the WWII shooter Call of Duty, including GameSpy's own PC Game of the Year. Today, IW and Activision released a single-player demo for the upcoming Call of Duty 2, offering a single level set in El Daba, Egpyt, in November 1942.

While brief, the demo -- called "The End of the Beginning" -- offers a nice look at the balance between scripted events and more open-ended combat Infinity Ward has been working on for the sequel. You're still part of a squad, and as you and your fellow soldiers fight through the sandy village, there are a number of opportunities to venture off the main path and flank enemies from the side.

Some other bits of interest from the demo: it appears to support most video cards (although no support for Windows 95/98/ME), and has built-in widescreen support, which, as we tested, looks pretty gorgeous if you've got a nice big screen to play it out. It's also interesting to note that there's no health bar: there are visual cues that you've been injured, and retreating to cover will usually put things right.

The demo weighs in 671MB, and is available for download at Fileplanet. Activision also released the final box art for the game, which you can see to the right. Call of Duty 2 is currently scheduled for a fall 2005 release.

Call of Duty 2 lets players experience four individual soldier stories as they overcome insurmountable odds in multiple campaigns. Players have the freedom to follow each of the four storylines through for the ultimate character-driven experience, or they can engage in the historic battles chronologically for quick hitting action. Along with the new missions, the game features an enhanced engine, advanced AI, and even more authenticity than before.

Being the little brother of one of the most highly acclaimed shooters of 2003 is not necessarily an enviable position. While it means a certain degree of easy sales, you have a lot to live up to. However, Activision and company were careful not to crank the Hype-O-Meter up too high, choosing instead to talk about the game in small doses; an interview here, a batch of screenshots there. When I got the 6-CD package amid a flurry of other shooters coming out in the same time frame, my initial reaction was mild. Then I began the install, the music swelled, and all those fuzzily warm memories of ricocheting bullets and constant explosions came back like long-lost friends. Call of Duty, it's been a while. We're glad to have you back.

Like its older sibling, CoD 2 covers World War II across three interwoven campaigns featuring the Russians, the British, and the Americans. However, now you can skip ahead from one faction to another, once you've played through a batch of missions. I personally wasn't champing at the bit to play one or the other, but I guess it's nice to have the functionality there. The game also auto-detects 16:9 and 16:10 widescreen ratios, as well as the funky 5:4 ratio for LCD monitors (like 1280x1024). You'll have a solid selection of performance tweaking options, or you can let the game set what it thinks will be optimal settings. With a 6800GT, 3.0GHz P4 and 1GB of RAM, the game plays quite smoothly at 1280x1024, with anisotropic filtering (to make textures look nicer) and 4xAA (to reduce jagged edges). There were slowdowns when it rained and when there was a lot of smoke on screen, but it was otherwise quite playable with the latest official nVidia drivers. Speaking of those guys, there's also an "Optimize for SLI" toggle, but I don't have the luxury of two hot boards, so let's move on.

Many of you who grabbed the single-player demo noted that the game didn't run all that great. All I can tell you is that the retail version appears to have been optimized. Textures look great, and there's lots of shiny stuff going on. Normal mapping is fairly subtle, except for a few elderly character models who look like they're bathed in a sheen of sweat. It's not quite on par with FEAR, but I think even the hardcore shooter fan will find little to complain about. Most importantly: I saw little sign of cutting corners for multi-platform development (as the game is also coming out on the 360). I'm pleased to report that everything looks quite sharp.

And CoD 2 is about the grisliest game I've seen get the ESRB T rating. There's no blood and guts splashing all over the place, but you will have dying soldiers attempting to drag themselves to safety, only to be bludgeoned to death by a nearby enemy. And they'll scream bloody murder when they die. On the other hand, the only blood you'll see is when you shoot someone, and the profanity stays firmly in PG-13 territory. And there's none of the chunky dismemberment we've seen in Brothers in Arms.