The setting may have changed, and Rebellion was all too eager to put that fancy-pants new flamethrower front and center right from the start, but the rest of the game is rote COD (right down to the intro tutorial that walks you through doing stuff like firing a gun, changing stance, using grenades, running, jumping and melee attacks) with little in the way of attempts to push things forward from a gameplay standpoint. One of the reasons people bemoaned the return to World War II was the over-familiarity with the weapons, setting and mechanics. Even still, all these things are part of Call of Duty for a reason: they were quite fun when they were first introduced, but the emphasis is on were. I was amazed that there wasn't an on-rails shooting section within the first five minutes of firing the game up. Planting explosives to blow up AA cannons? Yep. Taking out a tank with a rocket launcher? Oh yes, of course. Constantly spawning enemies that magically disappear once you've pushed past a certain point? Bingo. Clearly the boys and girls at Rebellion know how to make a good looking, fun, and nicely varied little game - Rogue Trooper in particular was fantastic - but in making a new Call of Duty game that runs in parallel with the regular World at Wars, at some point the decision came down to just crank out a paint-by-numbers Call of Duty. Predator and having crafted its own in-house Asura Engine that pumped some impressive visuals out of both the PS2 (with games like Rogue Trooper) and the PSP (with Miami Vice and GUN: Showdown).

The 2000AD publisher is certainly skilled enough to handle the task, having cut its teeth on the brilliantly creepy Aliens vs. Instead of having the folks at Treyarch work on yet another SKU or making them port things down to the PS2, development tasks were handed off to UK-based developer Rebellion. On the PS2, however, things are a little different.

Call of duty world war ii review