Call of Duty 2 (Collector's Edition)

The Good
Everyone who played the original Call of Duty remembers just how good it was. It had a cinematic intensity that other World War II shooters like Medal of Honor and Battlefield 1942 couldn't achieve. So, is this second rendition worth the sixty dollars? In two words: Oh yeah.

Graphics

Beautiful. Call of Duty 2 has the best graphics that I've seen on computer games. The engine used is all new and incredible.Every detail and texture looks amazing. The snow on your person's arm looks like you can reach out and touch it. The NPC's face's look very realistic as well. The sun glistens high in the Egyptian sky, almost making you think you should be sun burnt. Simply put, everything in this game looks beautiful. That is of course if you've got the computer system to support it. I can run the game with everything as high as it will go using an AMD Athlon 3000+ CPU, 512 mb of memory, and a Radeon 9600XT graphics card. Occasionally when the action get thick the frame and even the sound will slow down, but ultimately there's not much price to pay for the game looking so good. If you have graphics card's running in SLI configuration this game has the ability to take advantage of that fully. Also, if you have a Dual-Core processor, there is a patch out to take advantage of that. Right now the patch is only for Intel processor's, but hopefully one will be released for AMD processor's soon, as I'm buying a dual-core AMD in the next week or so.

Sound

The game sounds amazing. Everything from bullets whizzing around you to planes flying right over your head, everything sounds great. I wish I had a 5.1 sound system on my computer just for this game. I can't really say much more.

AI

The AI in the game is very smart. They will flank you, and help each other to kill you. On the other hand, your friendly AI is also very help full, calling out the position of your enemies and flanking them as well.

Fun Factor

This game is made by the moments. Moments like when your friend goes up to kick down a door, and the door explodes in shrapnel as Germans pound it with fire. There are many moments like this that I won't spoil.

Online

If you've got DSL or Cable you will be able to have fun online as well. All the features from previous CAll of Duty games like Killcam are back, but with more levels. Essentially the multiplayer remains the same, and that isn't a bad thing.

Gameplay

One of the most brilliant things that Infinity Ward did was to take away the health meter. You'll now know if your dying when the screen turns red around the edges. Hide away for awhile and you'll "rest up" and be fine. Also there is now a - indicator that tells you the approximate location of enemy and friendly - s. This is very helpful in game. The game is twice if not three times as long as any previous Call of Duty game.

The Bad
There wasn't anything really bad about this game. Under options you have the ability to change the Direct X setting you use. Leave this at default, because it may cause your monitor to go scratchy when you get shot.

The Bottom Line
The game itself is amazing. The extra disc isn't really worth the extra ten dollars, but if you have a DVD drive go for it. Some of the World War II veteran's stories and mission walkthroughs are interesting. Buy this game over any of the previous ones, especially the console versions. Very good, well worth the money.