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Nokia brings Infinity Ward and Activision’s acclaimed shooter to the N-Gage. Call of Duty, and its PC expansion pack United Offensive, are among the most critically acclaimed PC games available. The games very accurately portray World War II and truly make you feel like you’re participating in something of a grand scale. Porting something like that to a handheld like the N-Gage is no easy task, but thankfully Call of Duty on N-Gage is a pretty faithful version of the game and one of the most ambitious titles on Nokia’s platform.
Call of Duty includes a total of eleven levels, which will take you on three campaigns – one for the Americans, another for the British and lastly, one for the Russians – across several different major battlefields. You’ll play through many missions as on-foot soldiers, but others are a bit more creative like the Russian mission that places you in control of a tank commander. In each of the missions, you’ll need to work with your squad to accomplish the objectives which range from collecting a certain object or simply protecting your other squad members. The missions are a bit difficult, but they provide a hefty challenge without ever feeling cheap. The game does include a number of difficulty modes, but even the easiest (Greenhorn) will provide an ample challenge. Thankfully, you can save the game at any time.
The game’s AI is solid throughout. Your squad members can take care of themselves rather well and don’t require much babysitting. Additionally, as I mentioned above, the enemies provide a decent challenge. Control in the game requires a hefty number of keys, which can be daunting at first but you’ll soon appreciate the depth of them.
To accomplish the missions, you’ll need to use a variety of weaponry. The game includes actual, real-world weapons for each of the different groups. Americans can use the Thompson submachine gun, the M1 Garand rifle, the Colt .45 pistol and a frag grenade. The British have their own weapons, including their own grenade, a rifle, a machinegun and a submachine gun. The Russians have two rifles, one of which is a sniper rifle and a grenade. Germans, which can be played as in multiplayer, have a number of weapons. They have a rifle, assault rifle, submachine gun, pistol, anti-tank weapon and a long-distance grenade.
Aside from the eleven multiplayer missions, the game has a four-player multiplayer mode in a number of different multiplayer maps. You can play in either Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch modes, and overall multiplayer is pretty straightforward. As a bonus, the game seems to move a bit quicker in multiplayer mode, probably because it doesn’t need to provide AI for all of the squadmates and enemies.
N-Gage Arena support is included in the game. Nokia plans to have exclusive power-ups and weapons available. At this time, we were able to download three additional weapons for multiplayer.
Visually, Call of Duty is impressive. Looking at still screenshots of the game, it is easily the most impressive game on the N-Gage. The character models are made up a large number of polygons and animate pretty well for the most, even if there are some collision problems here and there. Surprisingly, the reload and weapon change animations are very choppy. The environments have the best textures on the N-Gage, without a doubt. They are incredibly detailed and really make the game look awesome. Unfortunately, in motion the game isn’t perfect. The game’s draw distance is quite short, considerably shorter than Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm, so you’ll notice frequent draw-in and heavy use of “fog.” Otherwise, levels are pretty impressive and quite large, but you can’t see much of it at any time because of the short draw distance. The frame-rate isn’t quite 30FPS but remains stable for the most part, although there are drops when too much is going on. Overall though, for a handheld, the graphics are impressive.
In terms of audio, the game is also impressive. The sound effects are crisp and loud, and do a good job of portraying the action. The soundtrack is dramatic and appropriate, which is always nice. Additionally, there is a number of voice clips in the game, which are authentic for whatever group you’re playing as.
Call of Duty is a great first person shooter for the N-Gage. The game’s ambition and scope is very impressive. The single-player levels are appropriately dramatic and convey the scale of the PC game well. Rudimentary but functional multiplayer and Arena support round out the package. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Nov 4, 2004
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