by: Dakota Grabowski

November 18, 2005

The enemy A.I. does put up a good fight even on the regular difficulty. If you’re crouching down popping out from behind a bunker every few seconds, they’ll soon spot you and advance to your position. If this is the case, don’t worry as your squad mates also have great A.I. Often times I noticed that they went off in their own direction to flank the enemies. The smart A.I. on both behalves makes up for one unique game to play. If you want the A.I. to have even more comprehension of war, just crank up the difficulty. The harder difficulties are probably what the designer intended on for Call of Duty 2 to be played on.

For dramatic changes between the original and the sequel, there are a few that stick out like a sore thumb. You’ll notice right away that there is no health bar. That’s correct, no more health bar to aide you on your journey through the towns of Europe. If you are skeptical, you have no reason to worry as Call of Duty 2 plays excellently without the health bar. Replacing the health bar is a far more technical experience that is enjoyable. When you are taking fire from the opposition, you’ll notice the screen to become red and blink as you become wounded. If you take too much damage in a short span of time, time start over of course. When you hear your character becoming increasingly tired and red fills up the borders of your screen, that’s your fair warning to get the hell out of there.

Is this a huge difference between the first Call of Duty? For me it is; no longer did I have to hunt down health packs and trek back through the levels for more health. Some may cry fowl as it could be a deciding factor of how the game is played. No longer will you have the advantage of health over your enemies but it will be more on your tactics of hit and run. If you don’t know what I mean, just take a look at the Halo to Halo 2 transition. In Halo 1, the health was a big part of strategies as you had to find the packs to insure that your death wasn’t inevitable. In Halo 2 though, if you take a few hits, just run away and you’ll shield will recharge again as if there was no harm done.





Back on track though, does Call of Duty 2 feel like a game more for wimps? I mean with the factor of being able to run away after taking hits and your health charging back up, there has to be wishy-washy methods that people are taking to avoid combat, right? That’s correct, no longer are the tactics to battle it out and the best man wins, but the hit and run tactic is more logical due to you’ll gain the health back in no time. Though I must admit, through the campaign, I enjoyed the ‘no health pack’ gameplay over the ‘search and find health pack’ method. But squarely focusing on multiplayer, people will find it annoying as your enemies run off gathering themselves again instead of squaring up and taking the battle to you.

What else is new? Let’s see… the smoke grenades! Not technically new but they play a huge part in the game now. Throwing a smoke grenade will help advance your troops on the battlefield without heavy resistance. What’s even better about the smoke grenades is running through the smoke cloud you have created. During one instance, I was blazing through the cloud ready to unload on an unexpected Nazi but what I found was the blunt end of a gun as I was hit hard without any caution. I thought I was on the upper hand but rather the enemies were advancing through the smoke cloud too and ready to take it to my squad.