Information AboutCall Of Duty 2 |
''Call of Duty 2'' is a First-person Shooter Video Game and sequel to the critically acclaimed game, '' Call Of Duty ''. It was developed by Infinity Ward , with contributions from Pi Studios , and was published by Activision on October 25 , 2005 for the PC and November 22 , 2005 for the Xbox 360 . ''Call of Duty 2'' takes place during World War II and features three campaigns where the player can be a soldier for the Red Army , the British Army , or the United States Army . ''Call of Duty 2'' was the highest selling Xbox 360 launch title selling 250,000 units in its first week of availability 1. A single player demo featuring a mission in El Daba, Egypt (entitled "The End of the Beginning") from a British perspective was released on September 26 , 2005 . A special DVD Collectors' Edition also exists, which includes 'making of' documentaries and interviews. OVERVIEW ''Call of Duty 2'' was designed with the intent to be less linear than its predecessor, with notably more open-ended environments and less scripted events that were a prominent aspect in ''Call of Duty''. For this, a new advanced AI -system was developed, called "Battle Chatter System" that consists of more than 20,000 lines of dialogue that your comrades and enemies use. These lines aren't activated by scripted sequences: instead, the soldiers react to the environment and use the Battle Chatter System to communicate with each other, instead of having the AI-controlled characters communicate to each other via a form of telepathy. The player will also have to cope with problems in many different ways such as flanking an enemy position. The gameplay is also more varied. The player has to take on unique tasks, such as repairing severed communication cables in the city of Stalingrad . In addition, the standard health meter in a first-person shooter was removed and replaced with a "shock" system. The new system allows the player to take a hit or two before blood seeps onto the screen. If the player manages to find cover and stay safe for approximately 5 seconds, the soldier will then become fully healed. The Game Engine is based on the Quake III Engine and supports Bump Mapping and Dynamic Lighting . It features a filter to produce realistic lighting, leading to special tactical gameplay elements, such as making it difficult to shoot enemies on a rooftop because of bright light. The game features several key vehicles and fifteen new weapons. CAMPAIGNS Private Vasili Ivanovich Koslov ( Red Army , 13th Guards Rifle Division )
level]] Sergeant John Davis ( British Army , 7th Armoured Division )
Tank Commander David Welsh (British Army, 7th Armoured Division)
Corporal Bill Taylor ( US Army , 2nd Ranger Battalion )
Single Player In the first set of missions, the player becomes a soldier on the Russian front, Vasili Ivanovich Koslov. The first Russian mission is a training mission. Simulating the poor economy of the Russians at the time, and poor training, the player is forced to use potatoes as grenades. After finishing the 'training' by beating back a German assault, the player takes part in house to house fighting across Stalingrad. In the second set of missions, the player becomes a British soldier, Sergeant John Davis, commanded by Captain Price, whom is seen also in the original ''Call of Duty''. The character must take over buildings, towns, and facilities and defend against counterattacks each time. An addendum to the second set of missions has the player taking on the role of a British Tank commander, David Welsh. It is only one campaign (2 levels) long, but the player takes part in the 7th Armoured Division's advance across Libya , harrying the retreating Germans. The next set of missions are American based. As Cpl. Bill Taylor, commanded by Sgt. Randall, the player starts off by playing a part in a World War II standard level, D-Day , except in this mission the character is not on Omaha Beach , but, rather four miles west at Pointe Du Hoc . The Americans have no more than twenty feet of beach to charge up before having to climb ropes up a cliff to sabotage artillery aimed at Utah Beach and Omaha Beach . On arriving at the top of the cliffs the guns are discovered to be removed, so the player has to go and find them. The remainder of the campaign sees you take part in the brutal fighting on Hill 400 . You then return to the role of Sergeant John Davis in the British Army as the forces fight in the Battle for Caen in Normandy. The final mission is set amongst the Americans in the securing the Rhine crossing into Germany . In the last scene, Sgt. Randall receives a field promotion and suggests to the Colonel that promoted him to promote Cpl. Taylor to replace the now empty Sgt. position. The end credits depict the dramatic rescue of Capt. Price from German hands by American soldiers with much better camera angles than the "side-scroller" adventure in the original Call of Duty credits. After the credits end the words, "No cows were harmed in the making of this game" appear, as in the original Call of Duty. MULTIPLAYER Depending on the map, players can choose between American, Soviet, British, and German forces. The players can also choose their weapon. Once the game has started, players can choose their respawn weapon. The game choices include:
A feature in the Call of Duty series is the Killcam. If a player is killed, the camera shows the game from a few seconds before the kill until the player is dead from the other player's point of view. The Infinity Ward team had been blamed for incorrectly implementing the multiplayer aspect on the Xbox 360 version and received protest threats from gamers. The Xbox 360 version did not allow anyone to become a host and set up a lobby of their own. When attempting to join a game, if all servers were full, then the player automatically became a host, but had no control over map and game settings. Coupled with this, the game suffered from terrible lag rendering most games unplayable. After several months and many complaints Infinity Ward stated they were working on a patch for the game that would be available over Xbox Live. Before the patch was released, a glitch was discovered which allowed players to set up their own lobbies, but required the help of another person playing a different game. The glitch allowed players to choose maps and game types (although the game types could still change randomly), but did not allow hosts to change the settings once the glitch was activated, nor restrict access to the lobby. Despite this, Call of Duty 2 still managed to remain the top most played Xbox 360 game over Xbox Live (second only to Halo 2 for the original Xbox) 2. The official patch was eventually made available by way of Xbox Live Update on March 22nd 2006, and as well as addressing all known multiplayer issues (map glitches aside), the patch also allowed users to create their own lobbies 3. Other changes included the ability to create private matches, post-game lobbies, and seeing enemy players' names inside of a game 4. The patch also changed the Headquarters multiplayer game by removing the A & B markers for potential radio sites, and reducing the countdown from 45 seconds to 15 seconds before the radios spawned in now a completely random location. The patch also corrected a flaw in the Deathmatch mode by allowing players to speak to one another whereas previous they were not able to. The patched Xbox 360 version can support 8 players per Server , whereas glitched games allowed up to 16 5. For this reason Infinity Ward again came under some criticism from a some players for restricting the number of players after it was proven that the game could handle more. On the PC, players can join servers that support as many as 62 players. Players of the PC version originally protested against the lack of an an anti-cheat system, such as PunkBuster . In response to the protest, the company signed a contract with PunkBuster and have incorporated it into their patch for the game. A patch is available for Dual Core processor users that in theory speeds up the frame rate 6. Another patch is available that adds (Harbor) and Wallendar, Germany 7. A number of maps returned from the original ''Call of Duty'' such as:
REACTION Call of Duty 2 received numerous perfect and near-perfect reviews from the media upon its release, as well as praise from many others. However, some reviews had minor criticisms. In general, some complained that the new health system, which allows players to regenerate health if they go under cover, makes the game less realistic than the original 8(Health in the original game was recovered by picking up 'Health Packs', a system felt by many to be just as unrealistic and arguably more restrictive to gameplay). Others say that while the remakes of the original game's maps were interesting, the game could have had more original maps 9. For the PC version, some said that the game's performance is occasionally slow 10. Others, who reviewed the Xbox 360 version, complained that the multiplayer wasn't as good as it was on the PC version because it was restricted to 8 players further hampered by severe lag which is still being fixed 11. A major criticism of the game, though, is the lack of a manual saving ability, forcing the player to rely completely on the autosave function of the game, since neither regular nor quicksaving is featured. While the automated save functions works well enough for the most part, it can make the game extremly annoying when failing to work properly. Notable here is the level of Pointe du Hoc, the game saves once the player gets up the cliff, but the way to the next saving point is under extremly heavy fire, with the argueably hardest part just before the next saving point, forcing the player to replay the whole parcour from the start. Also, the lack of manual saving options prevents the player from saving before special points in the game that they would like to have readily accessible for review or replay. The original game’s expansion pack United Offensive had both various vehicles and bigger maps, therefore many thought the game was taking a step backwards when it was announced that there would be no vehicles in the game, and so the maps would also get smaller. Activision said that they "never set out to make the best WWII FPS to date", a statement many didn’t see as reasonable. Others of course liked the thought of more close-quarter combat without large distances, but some argued that this could also be achieved by creating smaller custom maps without vehicles, thus having the possibility to create both large vehicle based maps, and smaller infantry maps. Also, seeing how EA's Battlefield 1942 (released in 2002) had a wide array of vehicles, it seemed strangely unambitious to make a game completely stripped of this aspect three years later. MAP GLITCHES Several of the multiplayer maps on the Xbox 360 exhibit some form of glitch which allows a player to enter an area that the developer did not intend players to visit. In Matmata, Tunisia, there is a dome in which players can hide and shoot other players, without being shot themselves. It does exist, but the game physics, such as gravity, need to be changed to reach it. St. Mere Eglise has a shed with a small open window that can be crawled through with minor difficulty to enter a small garden that is not part of the level. One of the Russian maps allows players to leave the map entirely and travel below the map to shoot others through the floor. In Burgundy, France, you can jump from a window to land on a ledge, which then you hop into a window, enabling to snipe other players. GAME WEAPONS German
American
British
Soviet
Other In multiplayer mode, all teams may use a combat shotgun, named ''1897 Trench Gun'', which is, probably, the Winchester Model 1897 . REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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