Activate Asia - Call of Duty 3 Preview

by Hep

The scene is the Shangri-La Hotel in the heart of Sydney, the event is Activate Asia 2006. This is Activision’s night of nights and is a host to the annual Press event showcasing their upcoming titles that are due out sometime by the end of the year. Everyone arrived pretty excited to see what Activision and new found friends Lucas Arts would have on display. With some of the great franchises these two companies are responsible for, we were really looking forward to seeing first hand some of the great titles expected.

Call of Duty 3 was the one everyone had come to see. If this game isn’t already in your wish list then I suggest you go add it now. The only thing that upset a few people is that at this stage there will be no PC version and there was no indication of being one. Being Xbox fans the guys at www.MyGEN.com.au didn’t have anything to worry about.

Unlike the previous Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3 puts you on the path following a single story line instead of jumping around between timelines. The scene is set during the Normandy Breakout and leads up to the liberation of Paris. In Call of Duty 3 you still get that sense of variety however by playing your part under different divisions. You get the opportunity to play the American Infantry, British Commandos and also now as the Canadian and Polish armoured divisions which are a first for the Call of Duty franchise.

As far as presentation is concerned, Call of Duty 3 takes off from where it left us from its previous stunning chapter. The game looks magnificent and this time even more thought has gone into the development process, which I must remind you that Treyarch are now doing rather then Infinity Ward. The game has new particle and lighting effects and was apparent during the demo that we were able to drool over. Smoke reacts to wind and debris reacts with the other in game physics, like contact with your character.

Escaping the most immersive and intense cinematic
war experience to date is now even more difficult,
you won’t want to put the controller down.

On the topic of development a new feature included into Call of Duty 3 is something that first appeared in another popular Activision title. As with Tony Hawk's American Wasteland for the Xbox 360, there are no loading times now or those annoying intermission screens. During key points of the game, you will be held in a building or in an area while taking fire for roughly 30 seconds. The cinematic experience just keeps going and it continues to load further points into the game. This makes for an exciting journey as the action just never stops. Escaping the most immersive and intense cinematic war experience to date is now even more difficult, you won’t want to put the controller down. Let’s only hope there are enough save points.

The Battle Action system is another new feature found in the game. While working on the game, the producers had key military personal that actually lived out these experiences and had them involved in the game's development. One of the things that were highlighted was that during the battle depicted in Call of Duty 3, there was not always soldiers taking pot shots at each other across long fields, a lot of hand to hand combat was initiated. With the Battle Action system your character may come in sudden contact with an enemy and you have to struggle with the enemy using your bare hands. This is performed by a mini game of key sequences, so to speak. With the controls you are prompted with key sequences and you need to follow these to protect your life. As the game progresses the Battle Action difficulty obviously increases which heightens the immersion of the game. Hopefully Treyarch don’t over kill it to much, and let’s hope we see it online also.

This brings me to my next point. The online mode will now feature a maximum 24 players online, we were told, with the ability to have single or split-screen mode set-up. With new classes and vehicles the multiplayer mode is going to be big. The announcement of vehicle inclusions like tanks, motorcycles and sidecars and to top it off, larger battles, Call of Duty 3 has us drooling wanting to find out even more.