The American campaign is quite unique in its sense, as the Japanese forces are using unorthodox methods to win every battle. From snipers located in the trees, to camo troops that provoke ambushes and melee attacks, the whole scenario changes the normal ways of completing a battle. You have to pay attention most of the time, and be prepared to use the melee attack if some Japanese soldier jumps on your back. As I already mentioned the Russian campaign recalls the original feeling of former Call of Duty games, as it progresses through the ruins of Stalingrad and Berlin. With some exceptions, most of the time you will be part of a squad group, so you have to learn the A.I. behavior and its methods of fighting. Like Modern Warfare, the A.I. of the squad members makes sense most of time by its decisions, and if you play on high difficulty levels you need to use them in order to take cover or to provide covering fire.

Mr Miller and Mr Dimitri have their own commanders, old veterans, who will guide them most of the game. Their profile, this time, is much more believable due to the voice acting provided by Kiefer Sutherland for Corporal Roebuck and Gary Oldman for Sergeant Reznov. With the experience provided by Infinity Ward and by hiring some movie experts, the storyline and the cinematic scenes conduct again to a very dramatic experience and with the allowance of 'Mature' rating even more realistic. But something is missing in this equation, and again my mind is flying to Modern Warfare and its spectacular story with twists and turns and the Chernobil sniping mission. I feel that there was much more emotion involved in the story and gameplay. Of course World at War comes with a third playable character that brings diversity to the whole story, through its new point of view. In the 'Black Cats' mission you will play as Petty Officer Locke, a weapon operator on a Catalina airplane. You will take action in a night raid upon the Japanese merchant fleet and later rescue the survivors from a destroyed U.S. fleet.

The second change would the addition of co-op mode for the first time in Call of Duty series. If you want to play the singleplayer missions with a friend you can do this. The mode supports 2 players playing offline and up to 4 while playing the same mode online. Most of the missions being squad based missions, the introduction of this mode was mandatory. While in Modern Warfare after the credits you could play a bonus mission, this time Treyarch made us even a bigger surprise. If you complete the singleplayer campaign, you will unlock a secret mode called Nacht Der Untoten (Night of the Undead)", in which you have to defend yourself from waves of undead Nazi soldiers. The mode can be played in singleplayer, co-op mode (both offline or online) with up to 4 players. For each kill you earn points that can be used in purchasing new weapons and fortifications to further increase your defending power. The multiplayer mode is based on the same mechanics previously introduced in Modern Warfare with achievements, weapons upgrades and perks to be added as you progress through the matches and increase your rank. For a more detailed coverage please refer to this article.

The third change is a minor addition, that works like a twist in the extremely scripted world of Call of Duty. For the first time Treyarch introduced a more open-ended gameplay because of the multiple ways of completing an objective. And this could be done thanks to the large scale maps considerately bigger than the ones from previous installments. Although it sounds interesting, not every mission will include multiple ways of completion, and those who have, offer two or three elementary decisions: either take the left or the right flank.

The fourth change and the last one is the returning of the flame thrower from Call of Duty 3. As the graphical engine is a tweaked version from the one used in Modern Warfare, Treyarch could implement the so trendy 'fire propagation' effect that allowed a more logical use of the flame thrower. Present only in mission featuring trenches' battles, the flame thrower becomes extremely effective in clearing all the dugouts.

Conclusion

Call of Duty World at War brings all the good features from Modern Warfare relocated in the WWII events. This game it's probably the best WWII experience but it's still just a clone of the previous one. I was hoping for a different approach that could make the game to be a truly sequel, but this is not the case.