![]() ![]() Later stages even feature multiple objectives that can be beaten in any order, although this isn’t quite as exciting as it may sound – the majority of these objectives simply involve heading to a key location and clearing out all enemies. Slowly but surely though, Infinity Ward finds their feet and levels start to become more open. Heck, one early stage merely involves following a broken transmission cable through a war-torn city, occasionally stopping to repair it. ![]() The problem here is that the first few levels are extremely linear, ushering you from one barren bombed out building to the next. Character models aren’t without merit – Captain Price boasts a handlebar moustache that’ll make any hipster jealous – but the environments are mostly featureless. It certainly doesn’t make the best possible first impression. Call of Duty 2’s arrival didn’t receive the same fanfare as franchise highlight Black Ops II, which begs the following question: is this 12-year-old shooter worth playing today? Despite only being the second CoD (2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is attributed to turning to series into a pop culture phenomenon) it became one of the Xbox 360’s most popular games, selling 250k copies during its first week on sale.Īctivision has slowly been adding Xbox One backwards compatibility to the Call of Duty series, albeit out of sequence. And so Microsoft’s shiny new system was graced with a conversion of Call of Duty 2, with the PC and console launches just a month apart. The arrival of the Xbox 360, and later the PS3, closed the gap between console and PC tech. ![]() Xbox 360 launch title Call of Duty 2 – not to be confused with CoD 2: The Big Red One – was released at a time when it wasn’t uncommon for the PC to receive exclusive spin-offs of popular FPSs. As for Guitar Hero, we recall progressing through GH2 to be appropriately challenging, but finding GH3 – the instalment that bought plastic guitar strumming to the masses – to be a breeze. This was especially the case for Call of Duty. Difficulty levels become dumbed down, and the number of “cinematic” cut-scenes increase tenfold. Celebrity endorsements, flashy CGI, licensed music, product placement and more start to creep in. This usually entails making a game appeal to the largest user base possible, often a more casual audience. The more money a publisher outlays, the more measures to ensure success are put into place. Although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, these two sequels arguably illustrate each series at their purest. Once Activision realised their potential, both received bigger budgets and sizeable marketing pushes. ![]() Both represent their respective franchises before being propelled into the big leagues. Call of Duty 2 and Guitar Hero 2 have more in common than having the same publisher. ![]()
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March 2023
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