As someone who did everything short of rubbing myself with the box for Call of Duty, my opinions about about what the war shooter genre should be aiming for were dramatically changed after playing Brothers in Arms: The Road to Hill 30 last year. With sequels to both games hitting stores at around the same time last Fall, I made a point of checking out Call of Duty 2 to see if Infinity Ward was adding anything to their award-winning formula. Regrettably, I got the distinct feeling that it was a step backwards when contrasted against my experiences with Brothers in Arms. Or perhaps more accurately, Call of Duty 2 is simply running on the spot.

I think Infinity Ward surprised a lot of fans of the Medal of Honor series in the way they took the excitement of Allied Assault’s single player campaign, placed it in familiar surroundings, and still managed to create a superior experience. The addition of squad combat in Call of Duty made many of Medal of Honor’s missions appear ridiculous in hindsight: how could one man take on the entire German army? Despite the heavy scripting of the squad and enemy AI in Call of Duty, you were made to feel part of something bigger. Less Sgt. Rock, and more Band of Brothers.

Taking another cue from the Medal of Honor series, Call of Duty 2 uses the theatres of World War II left untouched by the first game as a backdrop. The American campaign begins with the beach landings of the U.S. Army Rangers at Normandy. The Russian campaign returns to harsh winter terrain and burned out cityscapes of Stalingrad. The British missions take place in northern Africa, the host to one of the most famous tank battles in the second world war.

What interested me most was the American campaign, which begins at the Allied landings on the beach. The American campaign in Call of Duty followed the exploits of a group of airborne soldiers, and as a result these dramatic landings made famous by the likes of Saving Private Ryan and Allied Assault were left out. However, instead of simply trying to emulate one of the most harrowing video game experiences in recent memory, a different approach was taken by recreating the assault on Pointe-du-Hoc.

Pointe-du-Hoc was definitely a challenge for the Americans – it involved scaling a 100 foot high cliff where at its peak were fortified German machine gun posts that enabled them to effortlessly mow down their constrained targets. The goal for the Rangers was to elminate the 155 mm cannons located at the top of cliffs to allow the Allied landings on the nearby beachfronts to proceed. Once at the top, the Americans faced multiple counter-attacks from the Germans and suffered heavy losses. While these deeds were truly heroic, I didn’t get the feeling that what I was doing in the game was actually a lot of work. The Omaha Beach invasion in Allied Assault pitted players against a series of merciless obstacles to be avoided. It was probably the hardest part of the game, because it forced the player to take cover and advance cautiously – something that was unheard of in a run-and-gun FPS. Once I got to the top of the cliff of Pointe-du-Hoc, it became another grenade-tossing, Thompson-spraying bunker clearout. It was disappointing, considering this was the final campaign in the game, and intended to be its centerpiece.

Similarly, the British campaign gives very little attention to the tank battles of Northern Africa. The majority of the war on this front was fought on large, open expanses of desert with tanks. The tank missions included in this campaign were brusque and far too easy, offering little in the way of actual strategy or tank combat. It seemed like the vehicle controls from Call of Duty were tightened up, but they had no opportunity to present themselves.

Most of the maps in Call of Duty 2 are meant to feel bigger, but I could never escape the feeling that I was being directed through a World War 2 funhouse. Some of the missions have multiple objectives that can be completed in any order, but it was sometimes a gamble to expect my squad to back me up. It was times like those I appreciated the level of control that is given in Brothers in Arms.

Overall the missions in Call of Duty 2 seemed to blend into one. Tactics became an unfailing formula: rush, hope that squadmates follow and provide covering fire, hide and recover health. The setpiece battles try to derail this strategy by swarming the player with multiple enemy rushes, but this doesn’t break up the action as much as the designers probably hoped. It simply created a need for more bullets.

There’s a lot more chatter in Call of Duty 2, giving your squad mates at least some manner of personality. They’ll not only tell you when a grenade has been thrown, they will identify targets such as “infantryman on roof” or “MG 42 in upper window”. There is also constant feedback about objectives to complete, and when they’ve been completed. All of this together creates a very fluid sense of how the action transpires, and keeps you in the game.

The use of smoke grenades was not superficial, considering the smoke effects were touted as one of Call of Duty 2′s main features. It certainly looks good, but it also serves a purpose in adding to the confusion of battle, especially in the close quarters streetfighting in the British and Russian campaigns. They also make getting by machine gun emplacements easier – though I could have just as easily used the “Dash” ability that was added in United Offensive, but curiously taken out for Call of Duty 2.

There’s also no health meter. In fact, there is no real indicator as to the status of your character, except when the screen starts turning red and you’re told to “get to cover”. After not taking any fire for a few seconds your health regenerates and you can return to the fray.

Regenerating health. In a war shooter.

I think the entire game experience was overshadowed by this colossal mistake in design. It eliminates the need for magical health packs, but it also unfairly represents what happens to a man who runs a gauntlet of MG42s and still manages to survive. He just has to sit under cover for a little while and he’s good as new.

At this point it was really hard not to compare Call of Duty 2 to Brothers in Arms, because the former seems to go out of its way to adopt twitch gaming standards instead of the deliberate cover, aim, fire tactics of the latter.

Being modelled after the playing style of Medal of Honor, Call of Duty’s greatest failing in hindsight was the lack of any real consequence in battle. Just when a firefight seemed to get out of hand, there would be a medkit accessible nearby, or a bunch of dropped weapons to refill your ammo. Squad mates would fall, but would be replaced minutes later with new names. Call of Duty 2 essentially duplicates this approach.

Conversely, Brothers in Arms handled squad members extremely well. You don’t want to let your squad mates die, because they don’t get replaced. Try to take on the Wehrmacht yourself and you’ll die. The squad is clearly identified as your support through the gameplay. The narration and cutscenes in Brothers in Arms also did well to introduce all the characters, making them more than just extra bodies on the battlefield. The cheeky banter between Captain Price and Private MacGregor in British campaign of Call of Duty 2 is the extent of characterization in the game.

What’s more, Call of Duty 2 just feels highly scripted. Call of Duty was a great improvement on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Brothers in Arms was an even better improvement in the way it gives your squadmates common sense AI, and even feedback for bad decisions (such as positioning them in a wide open area), not to mention the ability to issue direct commands instead of relying on scripting to move the action forward. Call of Duty 2 often relapses into the shooting gallery concept that was prevalent throughout United Offensive.

On the whole, the AI in Call of Duty 2 is downright laughable after seeing how both enemy and friendly soldiers behaved in Brothers in Arms. When they weren’t sidestepping your gunfire, the Germans in Call of Duty 2 kept pouring out of buildings, retaking the controls of an MG42 time and again – a behaviour that would make no sense in actual combat. Why not find cover, and lay down suppressing fire before retaking the machine gun emplacement? Squad AI is equally disingenious – they still wait for you to advance, or simply move on to the next scripted sequence without you. These inconsistencies made it hard to be truly absorbed in the action.

In the end, Call of Duty 2 served more as a foil for my experience with Brothers in Arms: The Road to Hill 30 and its sequel. The action in Call of Duty 2 was reactive, adding a certain triteness to the whole affair. There are obvious hot spots where enemies will either appear or a scripted sequence involving your squad will take place. There are also numerous occasions where you and are faced with waves of enemies to defeat, artificially elevating the difficulty and falling back on the tired old traditions of FPS gaming. Brothers in Arms was hard, but not in an overwhelming with numbers way – it really challenges the player to think about the action first.

The World War II subgenre of first person shooters has taken a lot of abuse over the past couple of years due to its insistence on trampling familiar territory too freqently, and rightly so. However it seems to me that Brothers in Arms and Call of Duty 2 are on opposites sides of the spectrum between the fun of being a part of interactive war cinema and creating a believable and authentic experience. As a no-frills FPS Call of Duty 2 excels, but as an entry in the WW2 subgenre I’m afraid that it’s hard to take it seriously when evaluated alongside the Brothers in Arms series, which has firmly established itself as a more realistic interpretation of World War 2 infantry combat.