Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360 is a Historical First-person shooter and sequel to the critically acclaimed game Call of Duty. The game takes place during World War II and features three campaigns, where the player takes the role of a soldier in either the Red Army, the British Army, or the United States Army. Call of Duty 2 was created by the Infinity Ward and was published by Activision. Call of Duty 2 was first released on the PC version on October 25, 2005 and later came out on the Xbox 360. Other versions of the game have been released for mobile phones and Pocket PC.
The game was met with a positive public reception, receiving largely positive reviews from critics.
The console-only sequel to Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3, was released in November 2006. This will be followed by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
Gameplay[ | ]
Call of Duty 2 is a first-person shooter. The player takes on the role of several Allied protagonists in specific missions during World War II. The player is limited to two different choices of weapons which can be swapped with those left on the battlefield, and also carries both fragmentation and smoke grenades. The player can use the battlefields tactically by taking a kneeling or prone stance in addition to standing, and using cover for both protection and stealth. A compass on the heads-up display (HUD) shows both friends and foes, and objective markers to indicate locations the player must reach, areas to defend, or enemy cannons or tanks that the player must plant explosives on to disable. The player may also use stationary machine guns, mortar cannons, and flak cannons to take out enemy forces, in addition to specific missions where the player takes control of a tank to disable the enemies' tank force.
Should the player take damage, the screen will turn red and the sound of the character's heartbeat will become loud; the player must find a way to stay out of fire to recover before entering battle again or else will die and have to restart at the last checkpoint. Some attacks, like grenade explosions or tank blasts, will kill the player instantly if the player is too close to the center of the explosion.
In April 2006, Infinity Ward released the Call of Duty 2 Radiant, which allows a player to create their own multiplayer or single player maps.Along with Radiant, the mapmaker includes Maya plug-in support, an effects editor, and an asset manager which allows custom models to be made and imported into the game, as well as custom effects.
Multi-player[ | ]
Each PC multi-player server can hold a maximum of 64 players, while the limit is eight players on the Xbox 360. There are a total of 13 official maps, and three of these are remakes from the original Call of Duty.
The maps vary from Normandy, Africa, and Russia during the winter. Each team can choose a variety of weapons, depending on the map and which teams are playing. Depending on the map, players can choose between American soldiers, Soviet soldiers, and British soldiers for the Allied forces, while the Axis forces must play as German soldiers.
Call of Duty 2 features several game types: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Search & Destroy, and Headquarters.Many of these game types are retained from the original Call of Duty and its expansion, United Offensive.
Campaign[ | ]
Call of Duty 2 contains four individual stories, split into three campaigns. Each story concerns a World War II soldier overcoming insurmountable odds in the war.
- Eastern Front
- The player takes the role of Private Vasili Ivanovich Koslov, a Red Army soldier on the Russian front; The first Russian mission is a training mission during the Battle of Moscow. Referencing the stretched supply lines of the Soviet forces, the player uses potatoes as practice grenades on the grenade range. After finishing 'training' by beating back a German assault, the player has to recapture a building, walk through trenches as tanks plow over them, hold a position and recapture another building at the end of the level under hails of gunfire, but ultimately watches his commander order the building to be destroyed. After this, the player takes part in house-to-house fighting across Stalingrad, ending with the destruction of several German tanks via the use of sticky bombs. Soon afterwards, the player is to retake and hold a trainyard, again under heavy suppression, destroys a german tank and recapture several other locations in the same map. Later, the player then has to participate in house-to-house fighting in Stalingrad, destroying yet another tank in the process, and ultimately reach, recapture and hold city hall, performing sniper combat.
- African Campaign
- The player plays a British soldier, Sergeant John Davis of the 7th Armoured Division. The first map has the player in a sneak attack on German troops, ending with the destruction of a valuable German supply station. The next map on the same night has the player defending a crucial town from overwhelming numbers of Germans, finally achieving victory by destroying much of the German tank force using artillery. This is followed by the Second Battle of El Alamein, during which the player has to fight through several trenches, machine gun nests, flak 88s and finally taking the German's field HQ. The assault on El Daba to intercept the remaining Germans in Africa and destroy several flak 88s soon follows, ending the first British campaign. An addendum to the second set of missions has the player taking on the role of a British Tank commander, David Welsh. The first mission of the third campaign in Toujane has the player immediately under fire, holding a household with a single machine gun and then wreaking havoc with an armored car, forced out by mines, and then escaping the town with a bare handful of men. The following mission has the player retaking the town, and the final map involves capturing Matmata and shooting down several Stukas using a flakvierling.
- Battle of Normandy
- As Corporal Bill Taylor of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, the player starts off by playing a part in D-Day, at the assault of Pointe du Hoc, to destroy a German artillery battery, and hold it against a massive German counteroffensive in the following mission. Soon after, the player captures a nearby town and serves as a sniper against mortar crews until reinforcements arrives. The second US campaign is focused on Hill 400, involving the capture of Bergstein, a disastrous charge at Hill 400's bunkers and the defence against the German counterattack, with the player again performing sniper work against German mortar teams, destroying enemy armor, and generally holding the hill against the counteroffensive, all the while burdened by artillery and overwhelming numbers of German soldiers.
- Crossing the Rhine
- The final mission is set amongst the Americans in the Rhine River crossing into Germany. It begins as one of the few missions with the player immediately under fire, providing cover fire against the Germans until reaching the river banks and then fighting throughout most of the town. The final fight has the player defeat two German Tiger Is while they are moving out through the town wiping out any American soldiers, followed by several Germans to protect them from anti-tank attacks. In the last scene, Sgt. Randall receives a field promotion to Lieutenant and suggests to the Colonel that he should promote Corporal Taylor to replace the now empty Sergeant position.
The end credits depict the dramatic rescue of Captain Price from German hands by American soldiers. After the credits end, the words "No cows were harmed in the making of this game" appear, as in the original Call of Duty. This is in reference to the dead cattle visible in the Normandy missions.
Weapons[ | ]
Handguns[ | ]
- Colt M1911A1 (United States)
- Webley Mk IV (United Kingdom)
- Tula-Tokarev 30 (Soviet Union)
- Luger P08 (Germany)
Rifles[ | ]
- M1 Garand (United States, United Kingdom)
- M1A1 Carbine (United States)
- Lee Enfield No 4 Mk I (United Kingdom)
- Mosin-Nagant M1891/30 (Soviet Union)
- Tokarev SVT-40 (Soviet Union)
- Mauser Karabiner 98k (Germany)
- Gewehr 43 (Germany)
Sniper Rifles[ | ]
- Springfield M1903A4 (United States)
- Lee Enfield No 4 Mk I(T) (United Kingdom)
- Mosin-Nagant M1891/30 PU (Soviet Union)
- Mauser Karabiner 98k ZF (Germany)
- Gewehr 43 ZF (Germany) (Single player only)
Submachine guns[ | ]
- M1A1 Thompson (United States, United Kingdom)
- M3 "Grease Gun" (United States) (Multiplayer only)
- Sten Mk II (United Kingdom)
- PPSh-41 (Soviet Union)
- PPS-43 (Soviet Union)
- Maschinenpistole 40 (Germany)
Support Weapons[ | ]
- M1918A2 BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) (United States)
- Bren Light Machine Gun (United Kingdom)
- Browning M1919A4 (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union)
- Sturmgewehr 44 (Germany)
- Maschinengewehr 42 (Germany)
Hand Grenades[ | ]
- Mk.II Fragmentation Hand Grenade (United States)
- No.36M Mk.I Fragmentation Hand Grenade (United Kingdom)
- RGD-33 Fragmentation Hand Grenade (Soviet Union)
- Mod.24 Stielhandgranate Offensive Grenade (Germany)
- Smoke Hand Grenade (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, Germany)
Anti-Tank[ | ]
- Raketenpanzerbüchse 54 "Panzerschreck"
- 8.8 cm FlaK 36 AT (Anti-Tank) Gun
Shotguns[ | ]
- Winchester M1897 Trench Gun (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, Germany) (Multi-player only)
Reception[ | ]
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. Others say that while the remakes of the original game's maps were interesting, the game could have had more original maps. For the Windows version, some said that the game's performance is occasionally slow.
The PC version scores 88% on Game Rankings based on 77 reviews. The Xbox 360 version scores 90% on Game Rankings based on 87 reviews.
Call of Duty 2 was the most popular launch title on the Xbox 360, with 250,000 units sold in its first week of availability. 77% of people who purchased an Xbox 360 also purchased the game, which contributed to its high sales.
Advertisement controversy[ | ]
A television advertisement for Call of Duty 2 was the subject of some controversy in early 2006. The commercial, created by Los Angeles animation studio [Rhythm and Hues, depicted a first-person view of events that were supposed to transpire during the game, rather than scenes from the game itself. Some consumers felt that the advertisements were misleading, and in February 2006 the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority demanded that networks remove the advertisements after three consumers filed complaints of false advertising. According to ASA spokesperson Donna Mitchell, "Viewers felt that the ad was misleading because the quality of graphics was superior to that of the game's".Activision denies that the scenes were meant to give an impression of gameplay, stating in a press release shortly after the ASA banning that "The footage was intended purely to communicate the subject matter of the game rather than to represent actual gameplay.
Trivia[ | ]
- Captain Price, a famous character from Call of Duty returns in Call of Duty 2 even though he was killed in the first game.