Call of Duty: World at War

Overview World at War features more mature themes than previous Call of Duty installments and is open-ended, giving the player multiple ways to complete objectives, but otherwise generally plays like previous iterations of the franchise. The game features a variety of different weapons and technology from World War II. The player gains access to these over the course of the game, but may only carry up to two weapons in addition to hand grenades. Weapons and ammo from fallen foes or friendlies can be picked up to replace weapons in a player's arsenal. Players can also find weapons with additional attachments, including guns equipped with rifle grenades, telescopic sights, and bayonets. A character can be positioned in one of three stances – standing, crouching, or prone – with each affecting the character's rate of movement, accuracy, and stealth. Using cover helps the player avoid enemy fire or recover health after taking significant damage, as there are no armor or health powerups. When the character has taken damage, the edges of the screen glow red and the character's heartbeat increases. If the player character stays out of fire, he starts to regenerate health after a short time. When the character is within the blast radius of a live grenade, a marker indicates the direction of the grenade, helping the player in deciding whether to flee or throw it back at the enemy. Multiplayer World at Wars multiplayer experience resembles the one established in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. All versions of the game use a similar perk and ranking system and feature six multiplayer modes, including Team Deathmatch and capture the flag. There are three "killstreak rewards" that can be used to turn the tide of battle: a recon plane, showing opposing players on the mini-map; an artillery strike upon an area; and attack dogs, which spawn and attack opposing players. These are gained with 3, 5, and 7 kills, respectively. They are available in all game modes, apart from team survival, and cannot be edited. The game also features a cooperative gameplay mode with up to two players via split-screen on consoles, or four players online, for the first time in the franchise. The Wii version of the game does not include online co-op, but two players can play through a "squadmate co-op" mode which allows both players to experience the game through the same screen and point of view. On completion of the final campaign mission, the first Zombies map, "Nacht der Untoten", will launch automatically. In this survival mode, one to four players fight an unlimited number of waves of Nazi zombies (or, in the case of the map "Shi No Numa", undead members of the IJA), beginning with an M1911 pistol as their only weapon. Players earn points for killing zombies or repairing barricades in boarded-up windows. A player can spend accumulated points to expand areas of the map to access more useful weapons or purchase new weapons and upgrades. Zombies spawn in remote areas of the map and advance toward the players, routinely breaking the windows to enter and attack the players; if a player is attacked enough times, they fall and will need to be "revived" by another player in a certain time, or wait until the next round occurs to play again. If all players are damaged enough to fall, the game is over. As the game's DLC cycle continued, three additional Zombies maps were released, which added several new features to the mode. These features included "Perk-a-Colas", which are soda-themed upgrades for the player character, traps based on electro-shock therapy, ==Synopsis==

American campaign In August 1942, captured U.S. Marine Private C. Miller of the 1st Marine Division witnesses the torture and execution of his squad on Makin Island by the Imperial Japanese Army before he is rescued by a squad of Marine Raiders, led by Corporal Roebuck (Kiefer Sutherland) and Sergeant Tom Sullivan (Chris Fries), who then assault Japanese positions on the island. In September 1944, the squad participates in the Battle of Peleliu, now joined by Private Polonsky (Aaron Stanford). After breaking through the Japanese lines on the beach, Sullivan is fatally stabbed by a Japanese officer, and Roebuck becomes a sergeant. His squad fights its way through several Japanese positions, including mortar pits, and finally clears out a naval artillery post, allowing American ships to advance, and Peleliu eventually falls into American hands. In April 1945, U.S. Navy Petty Officer Locke, in a PBY Catalina, takes part in a defensive operation alongside a U.S. Fifth Fleet taskforce, who are being attacked as part of Operation Ten-Go. Locke's crew works to rescue American sailors while fighting off Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo boats and Zeroes. They themselves are saved by a squadron of Vought F4U-1Cs that drive off the Zeroes just as the damaged Catalina runs out of ammunition. In May 1945, Miller's squad assaults a Japanese position on Okinawa, the offensive culminating with an infantry attack on Shuri Castle. There several Japanese soldiers appear to surrender, but reveal concealed grenades when Roebuck and Polonsky attempt to search them; Miller is presented with the choice of saving either Roebuck or Polonsky. After airstrikes are carried out during the fighting, American forces capture Shuri Castle, eliminating the last bastion of Japanese resistance on Okinawa. The saved marine gives Miller the dog tags of the one who was killed. Soviet campaign In September 1942, Red Army Private Dimitri Petrenko of the 62nd Army awakes during the Battle of Stalingrad, in a fountain filled with corpses and the bodies of wounded men, as he watches the German troops execute his comrades. Injured Sergeant Viktor Reznov (Gary Oldman) enlists Dimitri's help in his mission to kill German General Heinrich Amsel, responsible for numerous war crimes across the Soviet Union. Over the course of the search for their target, they link-up with other Soviet soldiers, who make an assault on Amsel´s position. Dimitri and Reznov provide overwatch for the Soviet soldiers when they attack the post, managing to assassinate Amsel as he attempts to escape. Their position discovered, Dimitri and Reznov flee into the Volga. In April 1945, during the Battle of the Seelow Heights, a captured Dimitri is saved from the Germans by the advancing 3rd Shock Army, which includes Reznov and Private Chernov (Craig Houston), who is reluctant to be wrathful towards the enemy as Reznov ordered. Dimitri, Reznov and other Soviet troops fight through several German positions and take part in a vehicular engagement using a T-34-85 tank before boarding a train to Berlin. They fight their way into the city and then enter a Berlin U-Bahn station, advancing through the tunnels and engaging their defenders in close quarters, until the Germans flood them in an attempt to eliminate the Soviets. Reznov drags Dimitri out of the U-Bahn station and they take part in the Red Army´s advance towards the Reichstag. During the assault at its entrance, Chernov is burned by a flamethrower and left to die. Reznov, Dimitri and the remaining Soviet soldiers enter the Reichstag, clearing it of German defenders, and finally reach the rooftop. Dimitri is shot by a dazed German, whom Reznov then brutally kills with a machete. Although wounded, Dimitri plants the Soviet flag, signaling Soviet victory and ending the war in Europe. Nazi Zombies ==Development==

World at War was announced on June 23, 2008, by Activision, who confirmed that the game was to be released in fall 2008, and that the series would revert to its customary World War II setting. The game took about two years to make, twice as long as Treyarch's previous entry to the series, Call of Duty 3. The game is powered by an improved version of the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare engine, with several improvements made to the physics model. Environments are more destructible and can be set on fire with the flamethrower, whose fire propagates. Dismemberment, as well as realistic skin and clothes burning of the characters were added. Exakt Entertainment assisted in porting the game in this engine to the Wii while Arkane Studios assisted in the creation of levels for the multiplayer mode under the direction of Austin based studio Certain Affinity. Not long after, Treyarch released the modding tools for Call of Duty: World at War. These tools were the same ones used to create all the other Call of Duty series games, but with slight changes version to version, which can be downloaded online. A full-sized replica PBY Catalina was constructed for motion capture use. The new technology of occlusion, which changes the sound made by nearby object depending on objects blocking its path e.g. walls, has been added to World at War. The game has various levels of "muffled" sound depending on the objects it travels through e.g. a more muffled sound through a thick wall compared to a slightly muffled sound through a thin short wall. For the first time in a Call of Duty game, the player is able to tell the difference between someone walking next to the player and someone walking above or below the player, as well as telling the difference between a shot fired in the distance and a shot fired close by, but behind a solid object. The other technology of Flux was also developed using field recording systems. The World at War crew traveled to a desert with mountains on both side of the range to test the frequencies of sounds made by World War II weapons. Microphones were placed behind and 60 yards in front of the gun to test the echoes. This was later replicated and developed in the studio for the game software. It means that players will be able to pinpoint a sniper rifle shot, as it reflects off them, as well as hearing the initial 'pop' of a hand grenade blowing up and then the grenade's loud "whoosh" sound that begins where the grenade blew up, and ends behind the player. The flux system also combines with the occlusion system. ==Marketing==

The first trailer for the game premiered on Xbox Live on June 21, 2008, and arrived on PlayStation Network five days later. A beta of the game's online multiplayer mode was released for the Xbox 360 on October 10, 2008. A PC version of the beta was later released on October 28, 2008. Those who pre-ordered the game at GameStop, Game and EB Games in Australia or North America or who are members of the Call of Duty official website were given codes which allowed them to download both beta versions of the game. Coinciding with the release of the game, McFarlane Toys produced four action figures. Three are different varieties of US Marine Corps infantry, and the fourth is a British Special Ops soldier. A collector's edition of World at War was released on November 11, 2008 in North America and November 14, 2008 in Europe. It includes several bonus items, among them a stainless steel canteen imprinted with the Call of Duty series logo and a metal storage tin. The collector's edition also gives the player access to an unlockable weapon and the opportunity to earn double experience points in the online multiplayer mode, as well as a specially colored clan tag to denote the player's VIP status. This edition of the game is only available for the Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms. Downloadable content On February 26, 2009, an update was made available to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, as well as the addition of a new multiplayer map, Makin Day. The update included several bug fixes which removed glitches in several multiplayer maps and player movements, and provided more information in the stats display. The Makin Day map was released for Microsoft Windows on February 6, 2009, in the downloadable patch 1.2. Makin Day has a similar layout as the existing Makin map, but includes subtle changes such as daylight, reflected in the tide being out along the shoreline as well as some reworked areas of the map. The new multiplayer map called "Nightfire" takes places at night in the streets of a bombed-out area of Berlin. The "Knee Deep" map is in the jungle of Peleliu and contains fortified huts and streams. "Station" is located in a ruined underground train station in Berlin featuring subway cars and hidden passages. Reports stated that Map Pack 1 sold over 1 million copies in the first week of availability, setting an Xbox Live record for the number of downloads in a week. On April 30, 2009, Activision and Treyarch announced Map Pack 2, which was released on June 11. Map Pack 2 contains an additional four multiplayer maps. "Shi No Numa" (死の沼" 'swamp of death') is a new map on the Nazi Zombies co-op mode, set in a misty swamp-land surrounded by jungle. The map takes place in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies and new features include flaming hellhounds, the Wunderwaffe DG-2 weapon and ten new achievements/trophies. The map also introduced four new playable characters who have appeared in many subsequent Treyarch Zombie maps: Tank Dempsey of the U.S.M.C, Nikolai Belinski of the Red Army, Nazi Doctor Edward Richtofen and Takeo Masaki of the Imperial Japanese Army. The multiplayer map "Banzai" is set in a jungle featuring a river bridge, villages, a waterfall and hidden caves. The "Corrosion" map is set in a run-down train yard in Russia, featuring broken pipelines and train cars. The "Sub Pens" map is located in a bombed-out Japanese submarine base with heavy rain. On July 20, 2009, Activision and Treyarch announced Map Pack 3, which was released on August 6, 2009. This DLC also consists of three new multiplayer maps and a new Nazi Zombies map. The three multiplayer maps are "Battery", which takes place on an abandoned coastal artillery battery Pacific; "Breach", which is set in the overcrowded streets of Berlin, Germany near the Brandenburg Gate; and "Revolution", which is based on an industrialized city in Russia. The new Nazi Zombies map, "Der Riese" which means "The Giant" in English, is based in a factory in Breslau where "Element 115" is being processed and used to build teleporters and other mysterious devices, such as the "Pack-a-Punch Machine", which upgrades guns, such as the Wunderwaffe DG-2. New weapons such as Monkey Bombs were also added. This map also heavily expanded the official backstory to Zombies mode, which is continued into Call of Duty: Black Ops. All map packs were released for free on Microsoft Windows. The packs were paid DLC for the Xbox 360 and PS3. ==Other versions==

Nintendo DS Call of Duty: World at War was released for the Nintendo DS on November 11, 2008 in North America, and on November 14 in Europe. It was published by Activision and developed by n-Space, who used the same game engine as their previous title, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The game's scenarios are also based on World War II's Pacific theater and Eastern front with American, British and Soviet campaigns. Players are able to defuse mines and send Morse code with the touch screen, as well as using mortar rounds, an anti-air gun from a battleship, parachuting and using mounted guns. it features 13 missions set near the end of World War II across three different campaigns. Aside from the two campaigns in the Pacific and Western to Central Europe, Final Fronts also includes a third campaign involving the British advance on the Rhine River. The missions range from infantry, infiltration, sniper, large-scale assaults, night fighting, and tank assaults. The U.S. campaign follows Pvt. Miller and the squad from World at War, but here Miller is of the 2nd Marines Division instead of the 1st. The game includes his missions from World at War. The Western Europe campaign is from the perspective of infantry grunt Lucas Gibson, of the American 80th Infantry Division, with his missions set in Luxembourg and Austria. For most of the Europe campaign, the player controls Pvt. Tom Sharpe of the British 6th Airborne. Final Fronts does not feature online multiplayer or a Nazi Zombies mode. Like other versions, the game includes two flamethrower missions and a tank mission, however the latter is on-rails rather than free roaming. The flamethrower in Final Fronts only fires on a small scale, whereas the main version allows the flamethrower to be used on a large scale in more missions and it is highly visible where it is fired. The tank mission is from the perspective of a tank gunner named Alex. iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad versions Call of Duty: World at War Zombies was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch on November 16, 2009, by Activision, Treyarch, and Ideaworks Game Studio. The game is based on the Nazi Zombies mode in Call of Duty: World at War, and featured a tutorial map and maps called Nacht der Untoten, Shi No Numa and Der Riese, with a downloadable map named Zombie Verrückt. In 2010, an HD iPad version was released with enhanced graphics and the Zombie Verrückt map free to play without buying, but without the Shi No Numa and Der Riese maps. The game was removed from the app store in 2018. Windows Mobile version Call of Duty: World at War was released for the Windows Mobile. However, the game features a run and gun genre similar to Commando from Capcom rather than a first-person shooter, a different storyline, and a different set of characters. The game was developed by Glu Mobile and published by Activision. ==Reception==

Critical response Call of Duty: World at War received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. IGN concluded that World at War was a "solid, confident shooter with plenty to offer the casual and hardcore alike." Overall, the Official Xbox Magazine described the game as being more like an expansion pack rather than a full game. IGN applauded the developer Treyarch for its decision to stage World at War in the Pacific theater of World War II. The addition of a co-op mode was also complimented as helping to increase the game's replayability, and the multiplayer mode was described as "definitely an area where World at War shines." GameSpot praised the darker, grittier portrayal of the World War II settings. Sales Call of Duty: World at War was the second best-selling game for November 2008 in the United States, selling over 1.41 million units. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions were the second and ninth best-selling game of December 2008 in the United States, selling in excess of 1.33 million and 533,000 copies respectively. The Xbox 360 version was the sixth best-selling game of 2008, selling in excess of 2.75 million copies. It received particular interest in the United Kingdom, where it doubled the amount of first-week sales compared to Modern Warfare on the PS3 and Xbox 360. It also became the third fastest-selling video game in the UK behind Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The Xbox 360 version of World at War received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. ELSPA gave the PlayStation 3 release a "Platinum" certification for sales of at least 300,000 copies in the region. Retrospective reviews Retrospective assessments of Call of Duty: World at War have been mostly positive, with some critics calling it one of the series' best entries with the World War II setting. The staff of NME wrote: "World at War does do a surprisingly good job at being scary, with some sections merely being downright unpleasant and others channeling some genuinely spooky energy into their warfare." Several commentators noted the use of blood and gore in the campaign, with many believing that Treyarch successfully recreated the horrors of World War II. The staff of NME, however, noted the campaign's high difficulty, which they believed made it frustrating. The game's multiplayer was also praised by some for building upon the conventions set by Modern Warfare, although others felt it did not distinguish itself enough from its predecessor. ==Notes==