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DayLahs

Will Never Be Another

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Join Date: Jul 2002

Location: Miami, Florida

New Call of Duty 3 Wii preview

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=148454

With Red Steel and Far Cry from Ubisoft joining CoD3 for Wii's launch, it's going to be a battle for the FPS throne come December 8. But with the controls being the most prominent factor of Wii, it's down to how developers have used the Remote that will be most crucial. We're pleased to say CoD3 does an excellent job.

The basic control layout is the same as Red Steel's; you control forwards, backwards and strafing with the Nunchuk analogue stick, and use the Wii Remote like a pointer to control the on-screen crosshair and look view.

But even though the principles of the control system are the same as Red Steel, CoD3 feels immediately more responsive and easier to control. Red Steel has a large neutral zone in the centre of the screen which gives your on-screen arm a disembodied feel as you're forced to swing your aim right out to the extreme edge of the screen to make camera adjustments.

In contrast, CoD3's neutral zone is tiny. This means that moving your crosshair even slightly off centre incites an immediate reaction from the camera. The speed at which the camera turns is also more gradual, starting off slow and building up speed the further away from the centre of the screen you aim. This made it far easier to control than Red Steel, having no problems reacting and shooting enemies that appeared above or behind us.

CoD3 also uses the tilt function in the Wii Remote in some interesting ways. As you take cover behind scenery, you can lean your head out by twisting the Remote in the direction you want to look. You can perform a melee attack by shoving the controller forwards, and you change ammo by flicking the Nunchuk. It all works brilliantly which is fortunate because, as you'd expect from a CoD game, the action is brutal.

As dozens of soldiers run around, firing bullets in all directions, planes fly around overhead, swooping low and dropping bombs that rock the ground with huge explosions, which look absolutely awesome. The smoke and dust effects look great in motion, and truly play a factor in gameplay because you have to wait for the dust to clear before you battle on.

Just to make things even more hectic, CoD3 will give you the choice of multiple routes through levels. You've heard that before though, right? This is different; instead of simply giving you a change of scenery, each of the routes will give you a different role to play, but they're always connected with each other to achieve the main goal.

One level saw us storming a large building full of zie enemy. The commander ordered the group to split into three units and advance separately - the first unit to go through the top floor of an adjacent building to provide support for unit 2, who will advance on ground level. And the third unit would go through an underground passage to emerge from a trapdoor for an ambush.

You simply head down whichever route you prefer, and your AI comrades will automatically splinter off down the other routes. So you can be the sniper, covering AI advancers, or run straight in with support from AI snipers. Your choice.

CoD3 also packs the new hand-to-hand fights which have you wrestling to overpower enemy soldiers. It's tense stuff - we walked unsuspectingly into a building only to be suddenly charged at, have our gun grabbed and yanked from our virtual hands.

On other consoles, you tackle these bits by rapidly tapping the L and R shoulder buttons, but on Wii you have to perform a series of bigger, more aggressive motions.

On-screen prompts show you how to move the controllers. First we had to wrestle our gun free by repeatedly punching forward with both hands. Then we had to flick both hands diagonally down and right to make our man pull the pin out of a grenade on our opponent's belt, who then falls back over a wall and explodes.

Your movements in these sections don't directly control your soldier's arms - the Wii Remote wouldn't be able to push your hands back to simulate the opposing force of your foe - but the large, aggressive movements it has you perform better simulate the tension than tapping shoulder buttons.

CoD3 played fantastically on Wii. It looked great and ran at a solid 60 frames per second without a hitch. With the same level layouts as the Xbox 360 version, you've got an interesting choice to make.

Do you play the Wii version with its enhanced control system that delivers a more visceral experience, or do you go for the Xbox 360 version which will cost about £10 more and use conventional controls, albeit looking better in HD?

Jay

The Pinnacle of Manliness

Posts: 4,228

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Location: Tampa

Wii purchase for me........... maybe, I'll probably rent it first
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kinopio

Punk's Not Dead

Posts: 14,644

Join Date: Nov 2002

Many people who played this on a French forum I read (the Micromania chain of stores just had a Wii event) said it has some of the best controls and graphics of the whole lineup. I for one hate Call of Duty with a passion, so I'm still getting my beloved Red Steel. It may feel less responsive at first, but I do not think it's a flaw. The game was designed that way, the levels creators made it flow in a very unique fashion compared to other FPS, by forcing the player to take cover, stay mostly still in a closed area and shoot baddies, then moving on to the next part, or 'Shooting Gallery' as Chris Kohler nailed.

Far Cry I just have no interest in playing. The PC game was cool for a while, but I don't need more of the same on consoles.
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Fiddy

hi ho silver

Posts: 7,990

Join Date: Sep 2003

Location: Nashville

Man, I wasn't going to get it at all, but now I want to play it.

See? Lock the cross hair you numbskulls!

Yes, they didn't lock it, but they did better than Red Steel.

Knight of Cydonia

The Real Lakitu

Posts: 4,060

Join Date: Jan 2006

Location: Belgium

I didn't like CoD2* on PC, so this game will be at best a rent for me...

It wasn't really a bad game, but I suppose it's not really my genre...
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Mourning Star

"HERE'S JOHNNY!"

Posts: 1,185

Join Date: Jun 2006

Location: Raleigh, N.C.

I liked Call of Duty 2. Very fun game with interesting levels.
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Caster13

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Location: Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

I've got to say I'm more interested in the CoD series than Red Steel, so I think I'll probably end up picking this game up first before Red Steel.
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Formless

Underboss

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Location: Way Down the Hole

Call of duty is all about multiplayer and since this version doesn't have that i wont be getting it.
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Gevin

Sauce

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Join Date: Feb 2006

Location: Houston, Texas

My girlfriend works at Hollywood Video. ..I'll have her rent it for me, I suppose. It's either that, wait for a gamestop kiosk to have the game available on a demo (which I don't think will happen,.. too many other great games to show off.), or just completely ignore the title. I wouldn't mind just completely ignoring the title,.. but I'll go ahead & give it the benefit of the doubt & give it a test run.

trigger

Bench Phallus. Yeah.

Posts: 2,158

Join Date: Nov 2004

Location: Portland, OR

DayLahs
CoD3 played fantastically on Wii. It looked great and ran at a solid 60 frames per second without a hitch.

So, maybe it looks better than the screens we've seen...

bleeper2.0

Livid

Posts: 6,522

Join Date: Aug 2005

Location: London

Many people who played this on a French forum I read (the Micromania chain of stores just had a Wii event) said it has some of the best controls and graphics

Are you sure about that bit?

nenned

Is she worth it?

Posts: 9,577

Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Boston

Nintendo Power had a really good preview of the game with some new screens (graphics have improved) and they said the controls were really good. In fact, if got one of the "Staff Picks" for one of the best launch game.

Kuriboo

Super

Posts: 12,190

Join Date: Jul 2004

Location: A Galaxy far far away....

If controls are awesome, I will get it.

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Spawn

Lurking around...

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Location: The Netherlands

Gamespot also has a favourable preview:
http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/callofduty3/news.html?sid=6159455&mode=previews&tag=previews;title;2

It's really a preview for CoD3 for all 3 consoles, but I liked the following passages regarding the Wii's version:

The Wii version, as it turns out, is content-identical to the 360 and PS3 versions, for the most part. It's reasonable to expect that the relatively weaker system will have fewer enemies and simplified geometry in some parts, but in terms of storyline, basic level design, and so on, you're getting the same game across all three platforms. The Wii version naturally doesn't feature the extreme detail of the other versions, but it does play much like we're coming to expect first-person shooters to play on this unique new platform.

No nagging, no bitching, it's reasonable for the visuals to be behind 360.

Aside from this difference, the game played like you'd expect. All the core mechanics are the same here as in the PS3 and 360 versions--the difference is merely in how you interface with the game. Luckily, horizontal and vertical sensitivity adjustments were available in the build we played, so we could fine-tune the aiming to our liking, and afterward, we found the actual shooting gameplay to be more satisfying and skill-based than when played with a standard analog thumb stick. With the more flexible aiming, it became more realistic to switch to iron sights and squeeze off a quick headshot to take out that soldier just barely peeking over the barrier. We're looking forward to getting more time with this and other Wii games to get a better feel for this sort of unique FPS gameplay, which seems to approximate the feel of mouse aiming on the PC.

Awesome comments on the controls. "Better than with a standard analog thumb stick", "it become more realistic" and "which seems to approximate the feel of mouse aiming".
I can't imagine it could get any better than this for this game.

Gevin

Sauce

Posts: 3,555

Join Date: Feb 2006

Location: Houston, Texas

I've never really played a Call Of Duty game, except for trying out the 360 version, when my friend initially picked up the system. I'm sure there are different ways to complete each mission/etc,.. but does the game really have all that much story involved? Just seems like it would be a bunch of missions wrapped around a few historical factoids,.. no characters/story/etc. While I would love to pick up an action game simply for the controls, I'm thinking that I desire a little bit more from my games. If the Wii versions had some of the amazing graphics from the other consoles, I might would be able to overlook the story aspect & just consider it as being an awesome bit of eye candy to show off my new game system,.. not to mention a beautiful game for myself to play through. The game does not. The Wii version supposedly has amazing controls &.. what? That's the selling point: amazing controls. There doesn't seem to be much else going for it. Not even multiplayer.
Red Steel - Don't know about the controls yet, I've heard some bad things, but I've also heard that those that can't play with the controls are just incompetent 'cuz it's actually quite easy to use. The game was made from the ground up for the Wii, the graphics reflect this fact, perhaps the art style isn't to everyone's liking, but, damnit, the graphics are pretty damned nice, everything considered. I'm already aware that there is a story regarding some awesome sword & fighting to rescue a girl from the yakuza,.. supposing that the game has either a few cut scenes or simply a few small points of story developement through-out the game,.. I know that I'll be kept interested in what's going on,.. compelled to fight onward in order to complete the story & save that girl. + the game has some multiplayer gaming available.
Everything seems to point to the fact that Red Steel is more of my style of game,.. the only question is: how bad are the controls? I imagine they can't be too horribly bad, if anything, they might take just a tad bit of time to get familiar with.

So, yeah,.. like I said, I'll give COD3 a shot, just to be fair. I'm already picking up Red Steel, I've already paid it off, in fact. So, unless COD3 is just so amazing that it completely knocks me on my ass in amazement,.. I'm pretty sure that my FPS gaming needs will be taken care of by Red Steel. Should I get any other FPS games in the future, again,.. I'll likely be making the decision of purchase more-so based off of story/style than simply controls.

I don't intend to give the impression to people that I don't care about controls,.. but if that's the only thing you've got going for yourself,.. you need to try a little harder to catch my eye.

Formless

Underboss

Posts: 2,579

Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Way Down the Hole

Thats great news about the controls. Ive been hoping from the start that we would have controls up there with the mouse and keyboard for FPS'S and its becoming a reality.

To be honest i would rather awesome controls and average graphics to awesome graphics and terrible controls. FPS controls on consoles i felt were always terrible. And since the PS3 controller is exactly the same, i don't see how a game like resistance will be fun to play. Maybe this is because I'm used to PC controls.

Well i think i will rent COD3 to see what it is like.
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Aipotu

beN-Philes

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Formless
To be honest i would rather awesome controls and average graphics to awesome graphics and terrible controls. FPS controls on consoles i felt were always terrible. And since the PS3 controller is exactly the same, i don't see how a game like resistance will be fun to play. Maybe this is because I'm used to PC controls.

With Wii, a lot of the early experimentation will be with controls. Once developers have a nice template going, they can concentrate on milking the system for its graphical potential. A year or two from now, I'm sure that every game (thats not halfassed in development) will look stunning. Sure, 360 and ps3 games will look better too... but good graphics and great controls can't go wrong.

trigger

Bench Phallus. Yeah.

Posts: 2,158

Join Date: Nov 2004

Location: Portland, OR

Yeah, if the gameplay for CoD3 is solid, then the next CoD game should be a huge step forward in the graphics department. I think second gen games for the Wii will look very nice. It's all about resource managment, if you don't have to spend 90% of your time working on the gameplay, then you can devote a much larger portion of your budget and time towards art.

Bronx20

FlyGuy

Posts: 450

Join Date: Oct 2004

I dont know, this version of CoD just seems like the bastard child.
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Fil

Ask me what time it is.

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kinopio
...I for one hate Call of Duty with a passion, ...

Why?... I suppose you don't owe anyone an explanation but, why?...

Formless
Call of duty is all about multiplayer and since this version doesn't have that i wont be getting it.

Unfortunately for this reason I probably won't buy it either. However, due to the lack of modding support when it comes to console games in general I won't be getting any version of CoD3. The Wii can't do everything that makes the FPS genre so great on PCs.
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