Call of Duty: World at War Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

Fairly standard 2D shooter.

I really don't know where the mobile games industry is headed sometimes. COD on PS3 and other consoles is breathtaking, pushing the boundaries of what you can do and what you can see. In fact COD 4 has the specific honorific of converting me...ME...to FPS games which I had previously ignored.

Unfortunately the mobile version is a fairly standard paint by numbers affair. There's nothing really wrong with the game in any way, but everything has the feel of something that I've seen or played before. You have to progress through a series of campaigns and along the way shoot the bad guys, bomb stuff and generally not get killed.

The game has an overhead 2D view which allows for a fair amount of on screen terrain, but the small sprites and strange movement could be improved. In fact, running diagonally brought back some memories of the weird diagonal running animations of some of the old Commodore 64 games I used to play! Now that's old.
The graphics in between missions are not bad, but these are still shots of your commander.

Soldiers are differentiated by the colour of their uniform, so you know who to stick by and who to avoid. As you run up to bulk heads you can hide behind them to shoot the enemy. Really you just have to hold down 5 and your character will autofire. The thing is sometimes the enemy attacks in numbers and sometimes they hide behind objects making them difficult to hit. In these instances use your grenades or if you are really ballsy, use an air strike.

One thing which is similar to the actual COD series on console is the health bar. Here, you have a white bar which fills up with red as you get shot. But never fear, in true COD fashion, you can just run away and hide from the enemy for it to replenish. So the only times you will really be in trouble is if you're outnumbered. If you die though, you will start back at the beginning of the level, but they're not that long anyway.

The missions do try to paint a picture of wartime events but they all seem pretty similar. Run through, taking cover and killing people. This can be a lot of fun if done right, but a bit boring and monotonous if done wrong. COD on mobile is in between these two extremes. I wish I had a lot more to say about the game, but unfortunately I don't. Worth a look if you are really really bored or if you absolutely love all things COD.