After playing through the messy but fun Quantum of Solace, my curiosity around 360-era Treyarch increased. I found a cheap copy of Call of Duty 3 at a local game store and decided to give it a go.
I don’t have a ton of affinity for, or experience with Call of Duty. I’ve never played multiplayer, and the only campaign I’d finished is 4. Until now, I guess. After the 8 or 9 hours it took me to finish COD 3, I can safely say it’s totally fine, bordering on good.
COD 3 is one of the World War II ones, which I find endearing, as shooting Nazis is a timeless activity. The campaign is extremely linear: the only time I was ever really confused about where to go was when the game glitched (which does happen occasionally). Whether on foot or in a vehicle, the game funnels you through wide corridors where you battle seemingly (sometimes literally) endless waves of Nazis.
It’s too “cinematic” and linear for me to consider COD 3 a boomer shooter, but there are times when the number of dudes you mow down isn’t too far removed from a section in a Serious Sam game.
I was playing the game via backwards compatibility on an Xbox Series X, and with the light touch of upscaling, the game looks pretty good. As with the original release, it generally seems to hit 60fps, minus a few drops here and there. Outside of some gnarly up close textures and low-resolution cutscenes, COD 3 is overall visually impressive for a 20 year old game- I’ve seen lower resolution games running at lower frame rates on modern hardware.
The game’s soundtrack by Joel Goldsmith (R.I.P.) is surprisingly moody, and when the lighting and weather effects hit just right, COD 3 can feel downright atmospheric. But despite all of the excellent production, Call of Duty 3 still feels dated.
Cutscenes in COD 3 are not skippable, even if you’ve seen them before. If you close the game and resume from your last checkpoint, you’re forced to rewatch the cutscene that played prior to gameplay. Without quick resume on the Xbox Series X, this would have been incredibly irritating.
Beyond that annoyance, the game is simply exhausting. As mentioned earlier, enemies come in sometimes literal endless waves. At times they won’t stop coming until you complete an objective or move your character to a specific location. After recently revisiting Gears of War (which was released on the same day in 2006) and its thoughtful, intentional, combat scenarios, COD 3’s waves just feel sloppy. As combat is happening in COD 3, squadmates are shouting canned dialogue, sometimes the same line half a dozen times in a single firefight (another area where the game is outshone by Gears).
Throughout Call of Duty 3’s campaign you play as members of the American, British, Canadian, and Polish forces. While none of the individual stories or characters are very memorable, the way they all tie together and land in a central location is pretty well-done.
Call of Duty 3 is an interesting curio in the history of both the franchise and Treyarch. It annoyed me at times, but there were many moments I enjoyed or at least appreciated. With this as the baseline, I’m curious to play more of Treyarch’s COD games on 360, the next being World at War. I may even jump into it immediately, because like I said earlier, shooting Nazis never goes out of style.
All screenshots captured on Xbox Series X
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