Another area that hasn't exactly made leaps and bounds on Cod4 is the graphics engine. Ordinarily this would be a point of much wailing and gnashing of teeth for us, but given how delicious the engine was the first time around, it’s kind of hard to bag it out now. The only discernible upgrade made by Treyarch here is with the fire system - and Codwaw is a pyromaniac’s dream because of it.
Early on in the US campaign you’ll become best friends with the M2 Flamethrower - and you’ll both get on like a house on fire (or perhaps a bungalow on fire, or a tree, or a group of soldiers in some bushes ‘on fire’). Yeah, you read that right, you can cause more disturbing deforestation with this sucker than you could with a free hair removalist in a metrosexual suburb of Sydney – and the fires you create will actively ignite anything around them, including trees, and foolish snipers camping in said trees. Beyond that enhancement, Codwaw looks just as sharp as the retina slicing Cod4. Just with a fresh lick of lead based, WWII paint.
As some of you may have already heard, Treyarch won a bunch of accolades for the audio engineering they did in Call of Duty 3, and it is in this area that the padawan has truly outshone the master. Rest assured, if you have a kick ars sound system, Cod WaW is going to become your new benchmark tester. Bullets will whizz, the epic explosions will make angry neighbors key your car, and Jack Bauer (a.k.a Kiefer Sutherland) will be barking orders at you as the maniacal Japanese shriek bloody murder. All of this occurs alongside some truly adrenaline pumping music that uses traditional Russian instruments in the European theatre and heart pounding Japanese Taiko drums in the Pacific. It's truly fantastic stuff, and we haven’t experienced aural pleasures this satisfying and intense since our last holiday in Bangkok. (Not a typo. That seedy hotel in the red light district had a really, really good sound system).
Just like the graphics, when it came to designing the multiplayer Treyarch wisely took the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. Whether you’re a fan of the system or not, perks and ranks make a return and they once again reward the hardcore who play the game upside down in their sleep while absolutely raping the newer player who has just popped in to the mode to see if multiplayer is fun. Whatever the case, clearly this type of setup works with a lot of people, and of the thirty three available perks fifteen are new and the rest are re-jigged ‘WWII versions’ of the older ones.
Subject: Call of Duty: World at War (9.5 out of 10) 
Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:06 pm
