COD 5 better than COD 4?

Treyarch, the developers of Call of Duty 3 have been under a lot of fire from gamers and critics who said that they were never nearly as talented as the big boys from Infinity Ward (Creators of the COD franchise and developers of the first, second and fourth installments),

The truth is that they only had 8 months to work on COD 3 while Infinity Ward had two years to pump out COD 4. So now that Treyarch have been given a decent amount of time to develop a title they have been given a chance to show their true potential.

Is it possible that they have matched or even beaten the offering that Infinity Ward brought forward last year? Gameplayer.com.au has had a chance to test out the 4 player online co-op and from the sounds of things, Treyarch is proving that they are a becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Just last week I was able to get some hands-on time with some early code of COD 5 and I was impressed with what I had seen. I was not a fan of COD 3 so my expectations of Treyarch weren’t particularly high. My opinion changed after my experience with the first level of COD 5 but in the end I realised that I had not seen nearly enough to get a solid feeling of the games worth.

Gameplayer.com.au has been lucky enough to get some time with the games 4 player co-op and their impression left me thinking that my initial excitement was justified.

They have the following to say about their initial thought on the game:

 

It’s pretty bloody spectacular. As we’ve come to expect from the Call of Duty series, you really do get immersed in the world through a non-stop barrage of sound-effects, explosions, bullet-fire and well executed action set-pieces. Yeah it plays straighter than Ron Jeremy’s ****, but it is sensory overload of the highest order and it facilitates such tension that your butt cheeks will creep ever forward, clinging onto the edge of your couch as a clam would latch onto a diver’s ankle.

That last bit was a little too descriptive for my liking, but a good impression none the less. Gameplayer does go on to describe that their are definite differences between the two, saying:

it is a different type of game. The weaponry is old-school, and while new additions like the flamethrower provide plenty of comedic value – that’s right kiddies, watching foes light up like kerosene covered hay bales is worth the price of admission alone – if you love your red-dot enabled M16A4, you might be more than a little put-off. The graphics too, while impressive, aren’t as good as CoD4. Both games may use the same engine, but very few assets were able to transcend from modern day to the forties and the attention to detail, as well as the sharpness of the A.I – where Infinity Ward’s talent really shines – aren’t as impressive. At least in the build we saw.

So the big question is, which of the two are going to be better when we finally get to compare them.

While the upgrade from COD 3 to COD 4 was a lot larger and left us blown away by its improvements, it lacked any form of co-operative play. COD 5 will have to have an incredibly strong multiplayer package to take players away from COD 4 and move them back into the worn-torn maps of World War 2. That said, they have 4 player co-op, something that I know will attract many players.

If Treyarch pull this off it will be a defining moment for their company. Infinity Ward delivers nothing short of spectacular in terms of its titles and to even match them will be proof enough that they are not what all the nay-sayers thought they were.

I should know, I was one of them.

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Last Updated: September 15, 2008