With that being said, I can't say that the grittier look pays for itself. It certainly enhances the experience, but the faults arrive quickly. To be quite honest, jumping between the stories of Private Miller and Petrenko really boggles one's mind; not that the storyline has depth to it, but that you have no idea what's really going on throughout the entire game. With Petrenko, you're slowly reaching Berlin, Germany but with Miller, well, it's just a cluster of random battlefields with no back story or story development whatsoever.
The missions within weren't all fine and dandy either. On Miller's side, you storm beaches you've recognized before in thirty different games relating to the same historic events. If the objective isn't to follow your Captain, it's to plant charges while fighting off hordes of Japanese soldiers (and their generic, overused character design), you've seen in every mission prior. Petrenko's side isn't far different with a few gimmicks to separate the ultimately boring "follow me" missions.
World at War's difficulty is more than a problem for novice players. Trying to casually complete World at War on Veteran is nearly impossible with random grenades spawning everywhere around you. In one instance I completed an objective only to walk forward into a grenade I was unaware of. After my death the game reminded me to watch out for the "grenade indicator" which never appeared on my screen whatsoever.; of course, this wasn't the only time suffering from this issue but it's one problem future Call of Duty titles improved slightly.Enemy AI is even worse. You're almost always with a squad of four or more, so why does every Nazi have to aim their guns at me and only me? I mean, I know I'm going to be the one to kill them (since my team has terrible AI as well), but seriously. If every Japanese officer aimed at one person during the War, there would have been a lot of wasted ammo, a lot of dead people and every one who wasn't participating would be dangerously confused.
As I mentioned before, World at War really nails the grittier World War II atmosphere. Storming the beaches of Peleliu isn't a bright day in the park. Everything is either dirty or destroyed. Debris, destroyed buldings, huts, decaying wood structures, bodies, abandoned guns; all of which is realistically laid out as if humans were inhabiting them. The water effects compliment the nighttime stages with stellar wave patters and detail. The character design may be stiff here and there, but overall the characters look great if rehashed.
If completing the campaign alone sounds scary, or if you just don't feel like completing on your own behalf, grabbing a friend or hopping online with random players wouldn't be a bad idea. Two players cooperatively or competitively complete missions from the campaign on selectable difficulties. Sort of like Modern Warfare's Arcade mode, except cooperative.World at War introduced the critically acclaimed Nazi Zombies game mode and it caught fire almost immediately. Of course, it's not as polished as Treyarch's sequel, World at War's zombies still holds its own. Each stage shares its own set of characters; with that, every stage has its own setting with unique goals and layouts. Opening doors to reach new, powerful weapons while unleashing hordes of merciless zombies is a risk worth taking. Repairing boarded up windows and killing the zombies before they reach you is the key objective, which never seems to live.
Random bonuses will also drop. These bonuses are designed to help you make it through the wave you're on even if it's a wasted effort. Insta-Kill makes every zombie vulnerable to instant death by one knife hit or one bullet and the symbol is shaped like a skull. The atom bomb symbol explodes every spawned zombies sometimes automatically ending that wave when used strategically. Max Ammo's symbol is shaped like a ammo crate and, believe it or not, gives you maximum ammo for your guns.
Playing Zombies made me realize how much I wish the entire game was a zombie shooter a la Valve's Left 4 Dead series. The environments are laced with creativity and horrific scenery. Barbed wired fences with fungus slowly consuming them, deteriorating wood, broken steps, debris overlapping the floor or even blocking off most of a room, decaying zombies etc., all provide an atmosphere most developers miss when creating a horrific atmosphere. The atmosphere presented, both audio and visually, are some of the best the first person genre has to offer. World at War's voice acting is on the downside, with no character development to provide a reason to continue onwards. I don't feel bad for these men at war whatsoever due to the fact I know nothing about them. Reznov has potential to his story and is continued through Treyarch's sequel, Black Ops, but at what cost? Why not do the same for the rest of this shallow cast?
Multiplayer wise, I can't help but feel at a dead end; it's completely littered with hackers much like Modern Warfare's community. On numerous accounts, I've witnessed people flying across the map to slaughter my entire team with their aim assist and god mode enabled. With that, the community is relatively small; around 8000 users play this on a daily basis which makes it hard to find a different group of players that aren't cheating. The small community is also quite depressing as I couldn't play some of the game modes due to the lobbies being graveyards.
But, I'll be fair: I have played many matches hacker-free. After putting twenty hours into the overall game, I've come to the conclusion that World at War's online and balancing is very enjoyable compared to other outings in the franchise and, if it wasn't for the surplus of cheaters, would be highly recommended.
Conclusion-
If you're late to the party, there isn't much to recommend. The online is a graveyard full of dastardly ghosts, whereas the offline is a bipolar teenager. With the community the way it is, Nazi Zombies isn't enough to warrant a purchase for a title that has aged abundantly.
8/10
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