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Haze – 12 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/02/2020

Posted in: PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles. Tagged: exclusive, first person shooter, fps, free radical, haze, playstation, playstation 3, ps3, Sony. Leave a comment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Free Radical

Release Date: 05/20/2008

Available Exclusively On

It’s not a mystery that developers around the world struggled with the HD era of gaming. Development went from a few dozens to hundreds almost overnight and the advancement of shaders, more complicated lighting effects, higher resolution textures, larger worlds, and more dialogue, it was a huge undertaking that put many companies out of business, and Haze is a casualty of this struggle.

You play as a private security mercery named Shane Carpenter who is tasked to eliminate a rebel group for some reason, and it’s never said why. You are a supercharged soldier hopped up on the stimulant known as Nectar, and as the title says, halfway through the game you are an outcast and deemed Code Haze. The Nectar is used to force the soldiers to see the world in a way that the company wants them to see it and in turn your help the rebels take down the Mantel organization. Surprisingly, the story is the only interesting thing going for this game. It had a couple of really good moments, and only if the developers had more time to work on this, Haze could have been one of the best shooters of the HD era of gaming. But, like most games back then, the publishers were pushing for money and time and thus the game fell through.

The shooting, and sadly coming from some masters of FPS games, is awful. There is zero feedback in the gun, the controller, or hit detection so every enemy just feels like a bullet sponge. The guns feel the same and there’s just no satisfaction or character in them such as in a game like Resistance for example. Why there is no rumble function for firing weapons is unknown, but it sucks big time. Aiming and shooting become a chore due to the poorly laid out control scheme which I completely had to change. It doesn’t help that there are very few weapons. A shotgun and an assault rifle were the only weapons I used throughout the entire game outside of a few areas that called for a rocket launcher. There are supposed to rebel weapons and Mantel weapons, but they are both the exact same with just different ammo counts. They both feel exactly the same which is ludicrous. There are a couple of interesting ideas like being able to create Nectar grenades to confuse soldiers and make them fight each other. Meleeing enemies and taking their weapons is also a good idea, but it’s all executed so poorly and feels half-baked.

The level design is also bland and uninspired. Boring jungles, boring gray buildings, and hallways, and the game just look half-built. Many buildings are void of any furniture or character. I mean, why are there so many buildings in this world without desks or paintings? Does everyone just live on the floor? Then let’s get into vehicle sections. I don’t think these were ever playtested. The vehicles are floaty and too vulnerable, and scripted vehicle sections actually destroy the vehicle and force you on foot. Imagine any other game with a scripted vehicle sequence like Uncharted and having your vehicle blow up and you just walk on foot through that section while the rest of the sequences trigger. It’s broken and awful and should have been cut completely.

Visuals you say? Outside of the boring design, I guess the game looks decent for an early PS3 game. The game runs well at a good framerate, but it could have looked better. The multiplayer servers have long since shut down, but you’re not missing much at all. For the bargain bin price, I can only recommend this to those wishing to fill a PS3 void that they missed or are just curious. Haze is one of the most infamously awful games and left a stain on the video game timeline forever. It’s short-lived, but you’re better off playing one of the other many amazing shooters on PS3.

Lair – 13 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/29/2020

Posted in: PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles. Tagged: action, dragons, exclusive, factor5, lair, playstation, playstation 3, ps3, Sony. Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEI

Developer: Factor 5

Release Date: 08/30/2007

Available Exclusively On

Fun. This is not a word you will be thinking of during your playthrough of Lair. There isn’t a single redeeming value to putting yourself through the torture of Lair unless it’s for novelty or pure curiosity, like myself. I avoided this game like the plague during and after launch. It was quickly thrust into bargain bins just months after launch and no one gave it a second thought. The HD era of gaming was a rough start for most developers and this game put Factor 5 out of business. So what happened?

Well, for Factor 5’s history you can watch plenty of YouTube videos on that, but Lair seems to start out okay, but within 10 minutes you realize you’re going to be in for a rough ride. The game seems okay during the opening pre-rendered cinematic as it looks quite impressive for the time. Once the cut scene ends you are on the ground and you immediately notice the first few issues before you even jump onto your dragon. The framerate. It’s absolutely abysmal and one of the main reasons why the game is nearly unplayable. It never runs above 30FPS and quite often dips down into single digits. Whenever there’s an explosion or the thousands of enemies rendered on-screen in form of armies far below you, the game just can not keep up. The game from this point already feels half made and like it’s in the alpha stage.

The second thing you will notice is how incredibly ugly the game is, even for its time. The textures are horrendously blurry and pixelated and stretched out, the models seem half-done, the animations are broken and skip and jump around to different points, and not to mention the awful controls. The dragon itself controls halfway decent, but without the patch to add analog support this game can not use the precision of the SixAxis motion with this horrible framerate. Nothing feels finely tuned and you’re always doing large gross movements to overcompensate for the framerate. When you finally get the hang of the controls you are to lock on to enemies and shoot them down with fireballs. Pressing circle allows you to magically zoom up to them, or just magically appear next to them for a takedown style button pressing fighting mini-game for health or a QTE animated takedown. You can also bash them on their side by swinging the controller towards them. This entire combat setup seems good on paper but it’s clearly unfinished.

Locking on doesn’t work half of the time as the dragon will stay locked on, face the opposite way of the enemy, yet somehow still shoot fireballs at them and sometimes make it. Usually when you let go of the lock-on button that’s when all hell breaks loose. Nine times out of ten you will slingshot across the map and disorient yourself, hitting objects also slingshots you as well and will just push you straight into the ground. Every single mission is either an escort or takes out X enemies until something happens. The objectives are so vague and it’s so difficult to know who is the enemy and what units to attack. There are no highlighted areas, arrows, or anything to help you out. I restarted missions multiple times because I didn’t realize I was attacking the wrong side or completely missing an enemy that I didn’t see. While swooping down and attacking thousands of enemies at once seems impressive, and it should be, it’s not fun at all in this game. The draw distance is abysmal as animations run at 2 frames until you get right on top of them.

Oh, and the story? Forget it. Two warring factions for no apparent reason and then you switch sides halfway through. No lore, no goal, just a couple of armies fighting because they can. The enemy design is boring, the dragons are boring, and outside of fighting the controls and framerate, the game is just dull and uninteresting. Even if this game worked the underlying gameplay loop just isn’t fun. Sure, the maps look huge and there are tons of enemies on screen, but it’s a jumbled mess of confusion and throws the balancing way off.

Overall, Lair is just an awful game and shouldn’t be experienced by anyone. Unless you want to play an infamously bad PS3 game, just stay away. Thankfully the game is short-lived, but you couldn’t get Gold ratings in missions even if you wanted as the framerate and awful controls prevent you from doing it. There is also no trophy support patched in which is a real bummer.

Killzone – 15 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/06/2019

Posted in: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles. Tagged: guerilla games, halo killer, hd, killzone, playstation, PlayStation 2, playstation 3, ps2, ps3, remaster, Sony. Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEA/SIE

Developer: Guerilla

Release Date: 11/02/2004 (PS2), 10/23/2012 (PS3)

Also Available On

If you ignored the original Killzone back in 2004 I can’t blame you. It was a rough road for Guerilla as they tried to make an exclusive first-person shooter for Sony’s underpowered console to out beat Halo and Metroid Prime. Sony never had an FPS that was exclusive to their system, so it was Guerilla’s time to shine. It was dubbed “The Halo Killer” by fanboys and it sadly received lukewarm reviews upon release. I actually got this for Christmas 2004 and ate it up like candy and was a serious fanboy over this game. Fast forward 14 years later and I can see the game’s many flaws, but also appreciate what it did for the PS2.

You play as a squad of four who are tasked with stopping an evil Nazi-like empire known as the Helghast that is trying to destroy all of humanity over the planet Vekta. The story is bare-bones, but there’s a lot of potential here with interesting art assets and great voice acting, but it just falls flat. There’s no background on the main characters of the war you’re fighting in. You’re literally just dropped in with no background or reasoning behind it. This was never done with Halo or Metroid Prime as you were pulled right into the war or battles and understood exactly why you were there. It’s just a bunch of cut-scenes with the squad going after various Generals and moving from Helghan base to Helghan base.

The shooting is very interesting as it’s part of why Killzone was loved by those who did like it. There’s a lot of weight behind the weapons and they are actually quite unique and shoot well. It’s your standard array of military weapons but with a twist and with some personality behind them. Honestly, the weapons are the only thing front and center in Killzone and dominate the entire game. From the ISA and Helghast standard assault rifles to rocket launchers, grenade launchers, pistols, and heavy machine guns. Most weapons have a secondary fire that helps balance their weaknesses such as the Helghan’s rifle has a shotgun attachment and the ISA one has a grenade launcher. I personally stuck with the Helghast assault rifle through the first fourth of the game as you can only play as Templar, but once the other characters were unlocked I played as Rico since he has a chain gun with 800 rounds and a missile launcher. It’s seriously overpowered but feels so good to mow everyone down around you. The only weapon I really disliked was the shotgun as it’s so slow to pump and shoot that unless you are one on one with a single enemy you’ll get killed because you can’t fire fast enough. It’s practically useless even in tight corridors.

The downside to the weapons having a lot of weight behind them is the animations. They are so long that it makes the game more difficult than it needs to be. Every time you switch weapons there’s a long animation of pumping the shotgun, fiddling with a rocket launcher scope, and flipping up the lid on the scope to the sniper rifle, Rico’s chain gun takes at least 2-3 seconds to swing out then there’s a weird pump animation after so you have to hide behind walls every time you switch weapons because of these animations. The same goes for reloading. Some weapons take over 5 seconds to reload with the shotgun taking nearly 10 to load every single round. It’s fun to see and was never done up to that point in time, but it needed to be sped up or changed.

Outside of the weapons the enemy AI is as dumb as a doorknob with the Helghast literally standing around not shooting at all or they won’t move to cover. Part of this is the underpowered CPU in the PS2 and the game engine that pushed it way too far. There’s so much pop-in with fog of war to make up for the lack of a draw distance that enemies pop in and most of the time all at once so an entire room or corner will be full of Helghasts that are easy pickings with a single grenade or kill you really quickly if you don’t notice them. The game engine just chokes the PS2 like no other game with framerates dipping into single digits. I also played the remastered version for PS3 and while the 720p resolution looks sharper, there are still framerate drops because the engine just couldn’t handle the load. Sadly, because of the limitations, environments are bland and boring with claustrophobic corridors and almost no draw distance. The game is gray, dull, and colorless, and while this could have worked, the weak PS2 brings the art backward because not enough can be rendered on the screen to make it look nice.

The entire game pretty much plays the same way and takes about 5 hours to finish. There are no vehicle scenes, no scripted events, it’s all just running and gunning which gets old towards the end. For the PS2, this game is quite impressive and had a decent multiplayer mode, but there are more flaws than there are perfections. I would rather have had an uglier game that played better, but PS2 fanboys were clamoring for something that pushed the system like Halo did the Xbox. Is Killzone a Halo killer? Absolutely not and doesn’t even come close.

God of War – 13 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/28/2018

Posted in: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Sony Consoles. Tagged: god of war, playstation, PlayStation 2, playstation 3, ps vita, ps2, ps3, remake, remaster, Sony, vita. Leave a comment

Publisher: SCE

Developer: Sanzaru Games, Santa Monica Studios

Release Date: 05/06/2014

Also Available On

Kratos and God of War are PlayStation icons and symbols of what the system can offer. This game was the biggest hit in 2005 and I went nuts for it like everyone else. It reinvented the action-adventure genre like no one else had with epic boss fights, cinematic combat, and insane-level design. We finally get all of this in portable form on the Vita. While it isn’t the most ideal version it’s still plenty of fun.

God of War is really starting to show its age and flaws these days, that is really clear. It was a new idea, however well executed, but still had some issues. The game isn’t quite as epic as I remember thanks to newer games in the series being insanely huge. There are only two big boss fights in this game and I could swear there were more. The game is brutal in spots, but still rewarding with many secrets and areas to explore.

You play as Kratos, a Spartan general who cried out for Ares to save him and defeat his enemies, but this all came at a huge price. I won’t spoil more of the story if you have never played this series, but longtime fans know it already. The game has amazing combat which is what was praised so much 13 years ago. Using the Blades of Chaos, Kratos can swing and spin them around with amazing animations and kill hordes of enemies. I’m not kidding about hordes, there are some scenes where you must defeat nearly a hundred enemies which is brutal.

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The enemy variety is also great as there are small easy enemies to huge lumbering Cyclops that take many hits to kill. God of War is famous for quick-time event kills. After so much damage is taken the enemies will display the circle button above their head. This initiates a quick-time button pressing even that will give you health orbs. Each enemy has its own unique animations. Each enemy is also a challenge on their own as some are dangerous on hordes while not so much alone. The level design is fantastic and the enemy placement is cleverly laid out to offer a challenge every step of the way.

The series is also famous for the magic powers you acquire that are different with every game. You get four which become very useful for various enemies. Poseidon’s Rage is great for clearing hordes of weaker enemies as it’s an AOE attack. Zeus’ Fury is the only long-range weapon you get for picking off ranged enemies. Souls of Hades is like a shield, and Medusa’s Gaze is great for larger single enemies to turn them to stone. On top of the Blades of Chaos you also get Artemis’ Blade which is a powerful short-range heavy weapon, but once the Blades were fully upgraded, I honestly never really used it.

Outside of combat are puzzles that will sometimes slow you down. Most consist of pressing switches in order, climbing puzzles, or jigsaws. Pandora’s temple is a giant puzzle within itself that takes up a third of the game near the middle. I just can’t stress enough how hard this game can be. Some spots had me restarting dozens of times until I got it right and this included platforming sections. The first game’s Hell area is notorious for being brutally difficult. Having to balance on long spinning logs covered in blades and then climbing spinning spiked towers that stretch on forever is daunting, but rewarding when you do complete it.

Overall, God of War is still a blast to play 13 years later and is as well polished as I remember. Outside of hardware limitations at the time Sony did an amazing job creating what they did. There are some cheap deaths, unbalanced difficulty in spots, and the quick-time events do get repetitive, but it’s minor issues that can’t really bring the game down even today.

The Vita version is the only way to play this game in portable form, and it’s not the most ideal version. The PS3 version runs at a smooth 60FPS, but the Vita cleans up the visuals a little and does have some FPS drops when a lot of enemies are on screen, but it’s not often. I’m sad to see this game doesn’t hit 60FPS which it does even on PS2 sometimes, which keeps this game from getting a perfect score.

BioShock Infinite

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/09/2013

Posted in: Editor's Choice, Linux, Mac, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Tagged: 2k games, bioshock, bioshock infinite, directx 11, fps, irrational games, Microsoft, pc, playstation 3, ps3, shooter, Sony, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

Publisher: 2K Games

Developer: Irrational Games

Release Date: 3/26/2013

Also Available On

Well, here it is. One of the most anticipated games of the decade. BioShock was a masterpiece that raised the bar for storytelling in games as well as graphics and atmosphere. The underwater city of Rapture was loved by most gamers and became an instant classic. Infinite raises the bar yet again, and I have to say that this is one of the most beautiful and well-made games I have ever played, but even beautiful things have flaws.

The beginning of the game is just breathtaking and spectacular. Probably my favorite opening to any game. I honestly can’t explain much about the story because everything would be a spoiler. All I can say is that you are a man named Booker DeWitt who needs to bring back a girl from the floating city of Columbia named Elizabeth. If he brings her back he can wipe away his debt (from gambling). The story progresses into a huge twist ending and fully cuts you loose and doesn’t quite answer every question. The ending will shock you and even made my jaw drop. It’s a beautiful ending that is going to have gamers talking about it for years to come.

BioShock’s story is also told through the journey. There are no pre-rendered cutscenes or anything to break the flow. A lot of the story is told through hidden journals like in previous games. There are a lot of similarities to older BioShock games, but everything is improved upon. The combat system still uses the gun and magic attacks, however, you get Vigor this time around. They are replenished with Salts that you find instead of Eve Hypos. Honestly, the Vigor’s don’t seem as useful as the Plasmids did. I pretty much stuck with a couple through the whole game because there are so many guns that these end up being more useful. Crow’s Trap is one of my favorites. You send angry crows at enemies to pick and stun them, or you can lay traps. My favorite was the shock Vigor. It can stun enemies, but later on, it can chain across enemies and their heads pop. There’s one for fire, Bronco lets you throw enemies into the air, there’s a tentacle one that pulls enemies towards you, and there’s also one that allows you to charge enemies and cause damage. They sound neat, and they look neat in action, but the combat is more fast-paced and challenging than in previous games.

The guns feel so great to shoot in this game. There are pistols, sniper rifles, shotguns, and the typical ones in shooters. Hail Fire and Volley Gun shoot grenades, there’s an M1 Carbine, a repeater, and various others. Honestly, I wish there were more unique weapons like in older BioShocks, but at least they feel good to shoot and there are plenty of them. I didn’t really need to resort to Vigor unless I had a lot of people after me or had large enemies to deal with.

Speaking of enemies, the ones in Infinite are some of the most imaginative since BioShock 1. There are various human enemies, but the Patriots and Handymen are awesome. There are also various creatures and some fun boss fights as well. I just wish there was a larger variety. There are different reskins of these enemies, but I really just wanted more to shoot at. The Patriots have Chain Guns that are hard to bring down but are weak in the back. Handymen are rarely encountered but they are giant lumbering beasts and are bosses on their own. Infinite gives you more exploration options during combat. Using the Skyline is so fun and magical. You can slow down, reverse, and hop down wherever you want. You can shoot from these skylines, so it adds a tactical element the series needs. You even get a better melee weapon that has gruesome finishing kills that will make you cringe.

Combat is just very solid in Infinite, but by the end of the game it started feeling repetitive and all that kept me going was the story and new places to explore. Infinite has a lot of secrets that need to be opened with lockpicks that you can find. You can equip Gear that adds attributes and you can upgrade weapons via stations around Columbia like you did in BioShock. You can also upgrade your Vigors which is nice, there are a lot of upgrades and you won’t get them all in one playthrough.

When it comes to visuals, Infinite is one of the most beautiful and original games ever made…ever. On PC the DirectX 11 upgrade looks fantastic, the lighting is amazing, and the art style the team went for will blow your mind. I spent the first few hours just staring at everything because of how beautiful it looked. The pacing is spot-on, and the story makes you care about all the characters, or hate them. Ken Levine and his team are masters of their art and it’s proven here. This may even be his opus, but only time will tell. There’s nothing out there like Infinite, this is probably one of the few shooters in years that has tried to use the genre for what it’s good for. There’s no multiplayer, but you don’t need it. I also wish there were visual upgrades to the weapons like in BioShock 1, but those are minor gripes. Honestly, it’s hard to complain about this game other than the lack of enemy variety, Vigors feel underpowered, and there are no visual upgrades on weapons. The story is fantastic and gripping, this game will hopefully live on to be one of the best ever made.

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/30/2013

Posted in: Android, iOS, Microsoft Consoles, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unknown, Steam Deck Verification, Wii U, Xbox 360. Tagged: comics, DC, fighting, gods among us, injustice, Microsoft, mortal kombat, netherrealm, Nintendo, playstation, playstation 3, ps3, Sony, warner bros, wii u, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Developer: NetherRealm Studios

Release Date: 4/16/2013

Also Available On

Marvel vs Capcom is considered the official fighting game among Marvel fans. What about DC comics? There really hasn’t been a full-on fighting game except for the lukewarm Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It felt a bit stiff, Mortal Kombat fans felt the violence was too watered down, and it just lacked some polish. The MK team has come back, minus Mortal Kombat, and created a very solid full-on DC fighting game.

If you have played 2011’s Mortal Kombat reboot you will be very familiar with this game. The 2D fighting plane remains with interactive environments, special moves, and various other things. The game plays a lot like Mortal Kombat with several special moves and small combos at your disposal. You must combine all these to create larger combos, it’s tough and really takes some practice. Some characters are harder to play than others, but they are all fun to play in their own way. The interactive environments are very neat and I hope more fighting games pick up on it. You can press R near different objects and some are on offense while others are on defense. In Batman’s Bat Cave you can press a giant red button to ignite the Batmobile’s thrusters and burn your opponent. Some items can be picked up and thrown. Some levels have items at the very edges to help you escape and keep you from getting cornered.

The fighting engine is solid and responsive. Each character looks great and has an awesome arsenal of moves that are faithful to their comic origins. Each character has a special power-up they have that is executed with A. No longer are there four attack buttons, but three. Wonder Woman can use her power-up to switch between her sword and whip. Batman can shoot three batarangs, while some characters have defensive and passive power-ups. These have to recharge of course so they can’t be spammed. They are helpful and can give you a slight edge over your opponent. The power meter returns, like in Mortal Kombat, but is used for different things. Instead of the gory X-Ray moves, you can unleash super special attacks that look awesome. Some are a little less awesome than others, but they all take advantage of the power that each character wields. You can also use the Clash system which allows you to wager part of your special meter once per battle for extra health. These are all tactical additions that can give you an edge and turn the tide of the battle which is a lot of fighting games don’t have.

The fighting system takes a little while to get used to because it’s unlike anything else out there. It breaks the mold of traditional fighting games which the genre desperately needs. Injustice has some of the best over-the-top action seen in a fighting game thanks to the source material. Blood and gore are exchanged for comic book action which you can’t get anywhere else. I also like how NetherRealm made Aquaman cool again. He looks awesome and he’s one of my favorite fighters. He feels a lot like Jade from Mortal Kombat where he whips his trident around a lot and is quick and jabby. I just wish they didn’t use so many obscure comic characters like Sinestro, Grundy, Black Adam, Raven, and various others. I also wish the roster was a bit bigger. At least it makes up for it in content elsewhere.

The first thing you will dive into is the story. Unlike Mortal Kombat, you won’t fight like every character in the game. I was also highly disappointed in the story because it’s just a pointless mess. Superman is tricked by Joker to kill Lois Lane and this causes some sort of rift and everyone crosses dimensions. Superman on the other side wants to take over the world and suppress everyone, so everyone is fighting their doppelgangers…kind of uninteresting. The plot is just a bunch of DC characters beating each other up, and doesn’t really come to a head. I was glad that the story was as short as it was and was just over with. It seems the story was kind of slapped together and wasn’t given much thought, DC fans will be highly disappointed in it.

After you finish that you can go online or partake in the 240 S.T.A.R. Lab missions that are similar to the Challenge Tower in Mortal Kombat. Go to the Archives to unlock alternate costumes (not enough!), battle mutators, and concept art. This is similar to the Krypt in Mortal Kombat but doesn’t quite offer enough.

Overall, Injustice is a very solid fighter that tries to break the mold but offers a weak story mode, and the game just feels like it’s missing something. Is it because it feels so close to Mortal Kombat that everyone is expecting Fatalities or something similar? Is it that the roster isn’t big enough? Too many lesser-known characters? I can’t really say, but I can’t quite place my finger on it either. What’s here is great, not to mention that the Wii U gamepad can be used to play the game off the TV or used as a display for special moves. The game does look good with the Wii U getting higher resolution textures and some nicer lighting effects than the PS3 and 360 versions. The Wii U version is definitely the best of the three. With that said there are dozens of hours of content here and you will be playing for months.

History of History: World War II Shooters: Brothers in Arms Series

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/09/2013

Posted in: Blogs, History of History: World War II. Tagged: Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, d-day, double time, ds, earned in blood, fps, gearbox software, global front, handheld, hell's highway, iphone, mobile, Nintendo, pc, playstation, playstation 3, ps2, psp, shooter, tactical, ubisoft, world war ii, wwii, xbox, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

Ubisoft thought it would be a good idea to start a whole new World War II franchise right at the height of the genre and when it was hated most. It was a huge gamble because everyone was already playing Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and Battlefield. What could Ubisoft offer that these guys didn’t? For one, more realism. Brothers in Arms was the first WWII shooter to really portray the violence in the war. Every other shooter was like a shooting gallery. You shoot someone and they just fall dead. That feeling of realism from movies like Saving Private Ryan was never really translated in games, which it should have been. Brothers in Arms took the world by storm by being one of the best WWII franchises ever created, Ubisoft had a great formula here.

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30

Release Date: 3/1/2005 — Xbox

GameRankings: Xbox: 88%

Sales: 660,000

Road to Hill 30 was warmly received as being one of the best WWII shooters since Frontline. The game was more realistic and offered a tactical layer that other shooters didn’t offer. You couldn’t just stand out in the open and shoot everyone, you had to use cover and think about your next move. The game also looked fantastic and pushed consoles to their limits. It also featured gore and violence never seen in Medal of Honor or Call of Duty. Everyone quickly forgot about the previous WWII games that were out and jumped into the addictive multiplayer. A new Call of Duty and Medal of Honor were due out at the end of 2005 so it was a perfect time for Ubisoft to release their virgin WWII shooter.

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30

Release Date: 3/15/2005 — PS2, PC

GameRankings: PC: 87%

PS2: 85%

Sales:

Ps2: 460,000

PC: <10,000

Two weeks later Road to Hill 30 was released on PC and PS2. While the game sold the most on PS2 it didn’t perform as well as the others. The PC version was slightly looked down on for awkward controls and the PS2 had really bad graphics and was somehow extremely difficult. The Xbox version remained the superior version.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood

Release Date: 10/6/2005 — PC, Xbox

GameRankings: Xbox: 85%

PC: 84%

Sales:

Xbox: 310,000

PC: <10,000

It’s strange to release a sequel less than a year later, but Ubisoft did it and somehow it lived up to the original. Ubisoft realized how much everyone liked the game on PC and released it alongside the Xbox version. The game had another strong campaign, improved visuals, and the same fun multiplayer. The game had many improvements, and everyone wondered how Ubisoft did this much so quickly. While not as groundbreaking as Road to Hill 30, it was still a solid shooter and made it out just before the new Medal of Honor and Call of Duty were released. Surprisingly, the game sold more on PS2 than Xbox this time around.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood

Release Date: 10/26/2005 — PS2

GameRankings: PS2: 74%

Sales: 460,000

Ubisoft didn’t quite learn from their mistake from the last game and released a sub-par game on PS2. It featured worse graphics than the other versions and the AI just sucked. The game was obviously made on PC and was ported to PS2, the console was aging and just couldn’t keep up at the time. PS2 owners quickly forgot about this series because Earned in Blood would be the last BiA on current generation consoles.

Brothers in Arms: D-Day

Release Date: 12/5/2006 — PSP

GameRankings: PSP: 65%

Sales: 430,000

The other two franchises had an okay outing on PSP so Ubisoft thought to give it a try. It didn’t pan out so well like the other games, and tried to put the same type of game on PSP and it just didn’t work. Ubisoft obviously rushed this because the game was glitchy and the controls didn’t work on PSP. It wasn’t a disaster, but sold poorly and was quickly forgotten. This would be the one and only BiA game on PSP. It did surprisingly well sales-wise by selling almost half a million copies.

Brothers in Arms DS

Release Date: 6/21/2007 — DS

GameRankings: DS: 72%

Sales: 40,000

Ubisoft ditched the PSP and went with its competitor: The Nintendo DS. Ubisoft didn’t learn much from their last mistake and tried bringing a third-person shooter to an even weaker system. The graphics were terrible and the controls were worse than the PSP. It lacked a story like the console versions and the game was pretty basic. It was better than D-Day, but not by much. This would be the only BiA game on DS. The game also didn’t go over well for Nintendo. It only sold a measly 40,000 copies.

Brothers in Arms: Double Time

Release Date: 9/23/2008 — Wii

GameRankings: Wii: 46%

Sales: 110,000

Wow boy, Brothers in Arms went from the king of World War II shooters to the pits in just three years. The series was pretty much on hold until Hell’s Highway was released later in the year. With two mediocre handheld games, Ubisoft tried out the Wii and it was met with being the worst BiA game ever made. Double Time was a port of Road to Hill 30 and they just slapped the game on Wii with no second thought. It was ugly as sin, controlled terribly, and was just no fun. It ruined the excellent original, the game seriously bombed. This would be the only BiA game on Wii.

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway

Release Date: 10/7/2008 — PC, X360, PS3

GameRankings: PC, X360: 77%

PS3: 76%

Sales:

PS3: 870,000

X360: 830,000

PC: 10,000

Hell’s Highway was the highly anticipated trilogy finale and on next-generation consoles. The game looked amazing and played very well, the story was really interesting, but everyone was done with WWII shooters. EA tried it again in 2008 as well with Airborne, and everyone was just done. It didn’t stand up to the first two games, and BiA was pretty much on its way out. While Hell’s Highway was the last WWII shooter in the franchise, it continued later on iPhone with great success. Hell’s Highway was the most successful BiA game selling almost 2 million copies.

Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes

Release Date: 11/23/2008 — iPhone

GameRankings: iPhone: 69%

Sales: <10,000

Ubisoft handed the reigns to its mobile division, Gameloft, while they worked on the reboot. Hour of Heroes was a success on iPhone, but suffered from funky controls and was lacking some polish. It played well and was better than the previous handheld efforts, but still could have been more.

Brothers in Arms: Global Front

Release Date: 2/22/2010 — iPhone

GameRankings: iPhone: 81%

Sales: Unknown

2010 was really late to release a WWII shooter, but Gameloft did it anyway. The fire of hate for the genre had died down enough and the iPhone was a safe platform. The game was considered the best BiA handheld and featured great graphics, controls, and solid gameplay. It was only conned for poor AI and terrible voice acting. This would be the last game in the series, but at least it went out on a high note.

As you can see, just like the other two shooter franchises, Brothers in Arms started out great and quickly sunk into a mediocre abyss. The series has sold almost 5 million copies to date, not hugely successful, but enough to make it one of the top WWII shooters of all time. Handheld experiments didn’t pan out so well for the series either, and it shows that spin-offs and remakes don’t really work if you don’t change things around. Brothers in Arms still remains one of the best WWII franchises and took some serious risks coming out so late in the game. It offered a better story, more mature gameplay, and was just more solid in the end than Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.

History of History: World War II Shooter: Wolfenstein Series

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/04/2013

Posted in: Blogs, History of History: World War II. Tagged: 3d, apple, enemy territory, germany, history, id software, iOS, iphone, itunes, Microsoft, nazi, Nintendo, operation resurrection, pc, playstation, PlayStation 2, playstation 3, ps2, ps3, rpg, snes, tides of war, wolfenstein, world war ii, wwii, xbox, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

The World War II series continues with a lesser-known FPS franchise: Wolfenstein. Being id Software’s side project, it never got many sales and never really got the attention that Medal of Honor and Call of Duty got. It focused more on the supernatural and cult part of WWII. Everyone knows Hitler was into it and did a lot of experiments in this manner. Wolfenstein tells that story. It forgoes the D-Day reenactments and Pearl Harbor simulations. This is a more arcade shooter but still set in WWII.

Wolfenstein 3D

Release Date: 5/5/1992 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 40%

Sales: Unknown

Wolfenstein 3D was a good-looking game back in the day thanks to John Carmack’s programming magic. However, the game was boring and came before the famous Doom. It was unlike anything anyone had seen, a first-person shooter? No way! The game only received a couple of critic reviews but passed under everyone’s radar. The game was released about 15 years later as a remake and was slightly better.

Wolfenstein 3D

3/1994 — SNES

GameRankings: SNES: 58%

Sales: Unknown

Instead of creating a whole new game id Software went on a porting craze. They ported the game to every system that came out and it just never really kicked off. It was still boring and there were much better action games on the SNES. The SNES version was worse than the PC version because a lot was cut and it was edited. The faces were really low-res and it just looked awful. It shows that PC games just didn’t work on the SNES, and the game controlled terribly on the D-pad. However, id didn’t learn their lesson and continued to port it throughout the 90s.

Wolfenstein 3D

Release Date: 10/19/995 — 3DO

GameRankings: 3DO: 82%

Sales: <10,000

The 3DO may have been a failed system, but Wolfenstein 3D shined on it, and out shown the PC version. It had fully orchestrated music, better graphics, and the ability to load and delete saves. This was the best version to get and many issues were ironed out here. Of course, no one really bought the 3DO and the game continued to see a small market and garner low sales.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Release Date: 11/20/2001 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 86%

Sales: Unknown

Wolfenstein didn’t see a new sequel until almost ten years after the original. It was reimagined using state-of-the-art 3D technology and was a huge hit with PC gamers. Wolfenstein finally go the attention it deserved and became one of the best-selling PC games of the time. It was praised for its amazing multiplayer and the single-player was solid as well. While Medal of Honor was doing well on PlayStation, Wolfenstein got to the PC first before Allied Assault blew players away.

Wolfenstein 3D

Release Date: 3/31/2002 –GBA

GameRankings: GBA: 60%

Sales: 170,000

id tried again on the GBA, it had the technology to run the original, and playing the game on the go seemed like a great idea, but the problems with the first game were ported over as well. It had 60 levels but could be beaten in a few days, it also offered no multiplayer which was possible with the GBA Link Cable. Why id just ported the game straight over it beyond me, it was a solid shooter on the GBA, which there were few of, but it just needed something extra. However, it was at least better than the awful Medal of Honor: Underground port.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War

Release Date: 5/6/2003 — Xbox

GameRankings: Xbox: 84%

Sales: 670,000

Tides of War was released before the anticipated PC expansion. Wolfenstein was at its peak in 2003, but the Xbox version was loved for the online multiplayer that was an Xbox Live subscription seller. 16 players online were the hot new thing in 2003 and Tides of War fared much better than the abysmal Operation Ressurection on PS2. The game looked much better and in fact, even better than on PC. This was probably the best Wolfenstein console game made.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Release Date: 5/29/2003 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 87%

Sales: Unknown

The official expansion was finally released 2 years later but was a bad time for the series because WWII heavy hitters were in full force. EA just released Battlefield 1942 and Medal of Honor had released Frontline a few months prior and Rising Sun was due out. Call of Duty was due out in October. Wolfenstein was in a sensitive position, but PC gamers ate it up. It was praised for multiplayer and the single-player was considered mediocre.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Operation Ressurection

Release Date: 5/30/2003 — PS2

GameRankings: PS2: 69%

Sales: 530,000

Wolfenstein hadn’t done well on consoles and Ressurection didn’t help that. The original RtCW was ported over but was missing the multiplayer, the game was heavily criticized for this. It doesn’t help that the textures looked terrible and animations were awful. The game bombed and didn’t do very well, probably for a good reason.

Wolfenstein RPG

Release Date: 5/11/2009 — iPhone

GameRankings: iPhone: 87%

Sales: <10,000

Wolfenstein made a comeback in 2009 with a reboot and to get fans excited they released an RPG on phones and re-released Wolfenstein 3D on Xbox 360 and PS3. RPG was very well received for capturing the addictive style of the first game, but with improved graphics and RPG features which was seen in Doom RPG. I personally loved the game, but it was very hard. The RPG elements added a whole new layer of depth to the game and sold very well.

Wolfenstein 3D

Release Date: 6/4/2009 — PS3, X360

GameRankings: PS3: 77%

X360: 62%

Sales: PS3, X360: <10,000

id just didn’t know when to quit with Wolfenstein 3D. No one liked it yet they thought a new generation of gamers would like it. The game suffered from the same issues as the PC version. It was boring and just so dated no one really cared. The superior RPG came out the previous month so why bother with this? Wolfenstein was actually the most ported WWII shooter, and one of the worst.

Wolfenstein

Release Date: 8/18/2009 — PC, PS3, X360

GameRankings: PC: 74%

PS3, X360: 73%

Sales:

X360: 580,000

PS3: 520,000

PC: 20,000

The reboot finally came. After tons of mediocre ports, everyone was curious about this one. The game looked really good, but it was the same WWII crap we were already tired of. The genre finally died in 2008, yet id Software thought it would be cute to release this. Maybe a few years prior this would have been welcomed, but just fell flat and felt average. The game had mazy levels, the weapons didn’t feel very great, and the story was pretty bad. It’s worth a play-through, but don’t expect anything amazing. I enjoyed the game a little, but after one play through I was done. The game sold just over a million copies and was the most successful Wolfenstein to date.

So there you have it. Wolfenstein was a weird series. The first game was ported for almost a decade then it came back in 2003 pretty strong on the PC but had bad console ports (Tides of War was pretty good). After a hiatus, it came back in 2009 but brought the stinky 3D game with it that no one wanted. So what of Wolfenstein now? No one has heard hide nor hair of the series since 2009. The series to date has sold just about 2.5 million copies which is not a lot for a long-running franchise. Will we see another on next-generation consoles? No one knows, Wolfenstein has a very small fan base and everyone is tired of WWII.

History of History: World War II Shooters: Medal of Honor Series

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/02/2013

Posted in: Blogs, History of History: World War II. Tagged: airborne, allied assault, breakthrough, ea, european assault, fps, frontline, gba, heroes, infiltrator, japan, medal of honor, Microsoft, multiplayer, Nintendo, online, pacific assault, pc, playstation, playstation 3, ps1, rising sun, shooter, Sony, spearhead, underground, wii, world war ii, xbox, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

Medal of Honor pretty much kickstarted the World War II first-person shooter way back in 1999. It is the longest-running World War II series, but also one of the worst. It did really well early on and just lost focus and sight on what made the series great. The series did make revolutionary leaps and bounds for the shooter genre in general, especially with Frontline, it changed the way we play shooters today. Like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor gave PC owners special treatment early on because it was the only platform that could handle the visuals the game wanted to achieve. Medal of Honor supported PC more than Call of Duty did early on, but later switched to consoles only because that’s where the money was at. As you will see, Medal of Honor was once a great series, and even to this day, is one of the most hated shooter series in existence.

Medal of Honor

Release Date: 10/31/1999 — PS1

GameRankings: PS1: 87%

Sales: 2,670,000

Medal of Honor was revolutionary because it really pushed the PS1 at the end of its life cycle and was one of the last great games for the system. Being so authentic and delivering a great WWII experience was nothing that older games like Wolfenstein could do. The guns felt great to shoot, and the atmosphere was spectacular. Of course, it wasn’t anything like later games with massive assaults and explosions everywhere, but it got the job done and is still an enjoyable shooter today. Little did everyone know that the series would go on for 15 years and continue to fail release after release. Medal of Honor was a huge seller and was one of the most sold PS1 games of all time. This alone is the reason why it went on for so long. It is also one of the most sold WWII games of all time.

Medal of Honor: Underground

Release Date: 10/23/2000 — PS1

GameRankings: PS1: 85%

Sales: 970,000

After the first game received such high acclaim EA went at it again with a direct sequel. It was just as fantastic and improved the visuals even more on the dated console with the PS2 on the horizon and the powerful Dreamcast already out on the market. Fans still bought the game because it rose the sales charts along with the next-generation games. People were starting to wonder if the series could change much on next-generation consoles and what else it could offer. There’s only so much you can do in a WWII shooter. It wasn’t the million-copy seller like the first game, but it still had a huge following.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

Release Date: 1/20/2002 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 91%

Sales: Unknown

While being the most highly acclaimed Medal of Honor game to date, it was for a reason. The game was so cinematic and was beyond what anyone expected since seeing Underground on PS1. The game had huge explosions, amazing visuals that were a graphics card seller and a benchmark game at the time. With 2001 being a quiet year with no MoH insight, this date was highly anticipated for PC owners, but console owners were angry wondering when their shiny new PS2 would get a Medal of Honor treatment, it was right around the corner.

Medal of Honor: Frontline

Release Date: 5/28/2002 — PS2

GameRankings: PS2: 86%

Sales: 6,830,000

Frontline was deemed the last great Medal of Honor game. I remember borrowing this from a friend and being blown away by the D-Day level when the game opens up. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Explosions everywhere, gunfire, artillery hitting the water, it was cinematic and surreal. PS2 owners got the game first and didn’t come out on Xbox and GC until later in the year. What was here was probably one of the finest World War II shooters ever made, but with Call of Duty on the horizon would people be able to handle two different shooters at the same time? Would EA continue to pump out quality WWII shooters? Only time would tell. Frontline is probably the most sold WWII game of all time. The series in total sold nearly 9 million copies, which was a lot back then. Frontline helped propel Medal of Honor to make future games.

Medal of Honor: Frontline

Release Date: 11/10/2002 — Xbox, NGC

GameRankings: Xbox, NGC: 78%

Sales:

Xbox: 1,490,000

NGC: 590,000

Being released just 6 months after the PS2 game, it wasn’t received very well. Frontline became a PS2 console seller and Frontline promised multiplayer updated graphics and 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. It was one impressive package and was as close as you got to HD gaming back then, but everyone was already getting tired of the WWII genre. Allied Assault was blowing PC gamers away and this new Call of Duty was just around the corner with more Medal of Honor games for the holiday season.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead

Release Date: 11/11/2002 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 75%

Sales: Unknown

With Frontline out and Allied Assault released just 10 months prior, PC gamers were ready for an expansion. Spearhead was solid but was criticized for being too short and not offering much news for the series. The expansion was solid but just didn’t do enough news to wow players into thinking it was the best shooter out still. Would the next expansion do what Spearhead didn’t? No one knew. With Battlefield 1942 being released most PC gamers moved on to that series and were quickly crowning it as the best multiplayer shooter at the time, how could MoH compete?

Medal of Honor: Underground

Release Date: 12/2/2002 — GBA

GameRankings: GBA: 49%

Sales: 80,000

With handhelds still not being very powerful, the GBA was about as powerful as they came and really the only handheld around. Underground couldn’t translate its 3D graphics over so what did it do? Try to force it making it one of the ugliest GBA games ever made. Being the first portable outing for Medal of Honor was tough and Nintendo fans were quickly let down. It wasn’t just bad, it was just downright ugly. The graphics were colorful pixelated rainbows of washed-out nonsense. You couldn’t tell what anything was and it just played badly. Nintendo fans quickly learned that FPS games just didn’t work on the GBA. I feel sorry for all 80,000 souls who bought the game.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Breakthrough

Release Date: 9/22/2003 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 68%

Sales: Unknown

With no MoH games being released during 2003 fans were wondering what was going on. Allied Assault fans were getting bored with Spearhead and countless delays pushed Breakthrough back. Upon release, fans were highly disappointed that it didn’t deliver not only on the greatness of Spearhead, but didn’t add anything new or interesting. In fact, Breakthrough was better off not being released at all. It was just more of the same and fans were really bored of the series by now. Medal of Honor hit a rut in 2003 and never seemed to get out of it. With Battlefield 1942’s expansion out as well fans quickly forgot about Allied Assault and moved on.

Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

Release Date: 11/11/2003 — PS2, Xbox, NGC

GameRankings: PS2: 69%

NGC: 68%

Xbox: 62%

Sales:

PS2: 5,130,000

Xbox: 1,170,000

NGC: 420,000

Nearly 18 months later the highly anticipated Rising Sun was released following Frontline. Being based on the Pearl Harbor assault from Japan it promised to finally do something new for the series, but really just felt like an expansion to Frontline. It was also highly unpolished and just didn’t feel as spectacular as Frontline. This was one of the first signs of EA pumping out new MoH games to get sales. It was becoming quantity over quality and it showed in Rising Sun. I actually remember renting this and not really noticing much of a difference from Frontline and really enjoyed it, but if I were to go back now I would notice. 2003 was a sad year for MoH, nearly a year of waiting for bad games. Despite the game getting poor reviews, it went on to sell nearly as much as Frontline. Rising Sun is one of the best-selling WWII games of all time.

Medal of Honor: Infiltrator

Release Date: 11/17/2003 — GBA

GameRankings: GBA: 81%

Sales: 150,000

Wow, hold the phone! A good MoH game came out in 2003 but it was on the GBA? No way! Learning from their mistake with Underground EA made this from the ground up and was a top-down shooter. It had excellent graphics and provided the MoH experience everyone loved. This would also go on to be the best MoH handheld game and one of the last great games in the series. It was praised for mixing what everyone loved about MoH with cartoony shooters that were popular on GBA at the time. There were even a few FPS sections that were done right. It sold fairly well for a GBA game, but EA decided it didn’t sell well enough.

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault

Release Date: 11/4/2004 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 79%

Sales: Unknown

2004 was a slow year for MoH. After all, the harsh reception of the games for 2003 EA played it slowly from here on out, yet kept delivering games no one wanted. 2004/2005 was a year when WWII was at its peak and kept slamming our systems with endless WWII shooters. Pacific Assault returned to PCs and was exclusive to make PC fans happy. The game was well-received for actually doing something new and bringing us to the Pacific theatre of the war and being very cinematic. It also pushed PCs to their max requiring GPU upgrades yet again. Pacific Assault would be the last PC exclusive Medal of Honor.

Medal of Honor: European Assault

Release Date: 6/7/2005 — PS2, Xbox, NGC

GameRankings: PS2, Xbox: 73%

NGC: 72%

Sales:

PS2: 1,880,000

Xbox: 530,000

NGC: 250,000

2005 was the peak of WWII shooters and European Assault was the only release for Medal of Honor. It was praised for trying something new by giving you multiple paths and feeling very solid, the game knew what it was doing. The only issue was that it was the same game we’ve played dozens of times already. How many times can we replay Operation Market Garden or some other part of the war? By now they all felt the same, just shoot every German that passes on screen. The MoH releases start trickling down at this point while Call of Duty is in full force. The Xbox 360 is due out in just 5 months and the highly anticipated Call of Duty 2 comes out just three months from now, how can Medal of Honor keep up? Despite the mediocre reviews, the game sold surprisingly well with over 2 million copies sold.

Medal of Honor Heroes

Release Date: 10/20/2006 — PSP

GameRankings: PSP: 69%

Sales: 2,570,000

EA beat Activision to the punch for releasing a WWII shooter on the PSP. 2006 was another slow year for Medal of Honor. Call of Duty was unleashed on next-generation consoles while everyone was wondering if Medal of Honor had finally died. Heroes were praised for controlling well on PSP and looking very good, but it was really short and offered nothing new from previous games in the series. It was a hit with PSP fans and went on to have a sequel less than a year later. It seems that PSP owners were desperate for a good shooter because it was one of the best selling PSP games, and best selling MoH games in a long time. The high sales garnered a sequel.

Medal of Honor: Vanguard

Release Date: 3/26/2007 — PS2, Wii

GameRankings: PS2: 64%

Wii: 57%

Sales:

Wii: 60,000

PS2: 30,000

2007 was a confusing year for Medal of Honor. While every next-generation console was out, they were still making games for the dated PS2. Why Vanguard was released is beyond anyone’s guess. It didn’t need to exist, yet did so anyway. The game was literally just the same WWII shooter that everyone was sick of and sold poorly, in fact, most people forgot this game even existed. It was lost in the next-generation hits that were being released. This was the first Medal of Honor game on Wii and suffered from terrible controls. The genre was slowly petering out, yet Medal of Honor kept trying to cling on like a desperate lover. It showed that gamers just didn’t want Medal of Honor anymore, the game sold less than 100,000 copies and was the worst-selling MoH game of all time.

Medal of Honor: Airborne

Release Date: 9/4/2007 — PS3, X360, PC

GameRankings: PC: 77%

PS3: 76%

X360: 74%

Sales:

PS3: 1,110,00

X360: 1,040,000

PC: 20,000

EA finally released their one and only next-generation WWII shooter and was considered one of the worst. The game was literally the same again just prettier. It got everyone’s attention because it looked fantastic, but no one cared. It tried an “open environment” approach by allowing you to drop down anywhere on the map and pursue objectives as you please. The issue was that the game was extremely difficult and sent dozens upon dozens of enemies after you when you couldn’t stand a chance, it didn’t help that the weapons were highly inaccurate. By now EA finally got the hint, but they needed one last hoopla for 2007. The graphics were a main selling point for the game and it sold surprisingly well, however not nearly as much as older games in the series.

Medal of Honor Heroes 2

Release Date: 11/13/2007 — PSP, Wii

GameRankings: Wii: 74%

PSP: 69%

Sales:

PSP: 1,110,000

Wii: 390,000

The final Medal of Honor WWII shooter went out on the Wii with great success. It was fun on rails arcade shooter, but in the end, was exactly the same as the rest. The PSP version wasn’t well-liked because the Wii version was superior thanks to the motion controls. Heroes 2 was just another WWII shooter that no one asked for though, the series should have died three years prior. The series kept proving to everyone that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and kept forcing its way onto shelves like a bully. PSP fans just ate the game up, but only sold half of what the first Heroes game sold.

The Medal of Honor WWII series sold over 30 million copies making it the second best-selling WWII franchise of all time, just a few million shy of Call of Duty. It was a juggernaut that gave EA billions of dollars. In the end Medal of Honor started out great and trickled down into mediocrity. It had a hard time jumping to next-generation consoles and released way too many games no one asked for. It shows that sequelitis can set in and ruin even mammoth franchises like Medal of Honor. I grew up with these games as a kid and played them over the years and lost interest after Call of Duty became the superior game. It had fewer releases, but the games were more fun and were just better in many ways.

History of History: World War II Shooters: Call of Duty Series

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/27/2013

Posted in: Blogs, History of History: World War II. Tagged: big red one, call of duty, finest hour, history, Nintendo, playstation, playstation 3, ps2, ps3, psp, roads to victory, Sony, united offensive, world war ii, wwii, xbox, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

From the late 90s to the late 00s we were bombarded by the game after game reenacting World War II in various ways. From heavy hitters like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor to simulators like Silent Hunter and Microsoft Combat Simulator. There was even a slew of strategy games like Hearts of Iron and Company of Heroes. Not all of these games were good, in fact, a majority of them were very bad. Towards the mid-2000’s everyone was tired of the WWII genre yet they still kept coming. The Medal of Honor series fell flat early on starting with Rising Sun, Call of Duty kept making the same game over and over again. It became deja vu when it was the same game with just better graphics, sound, and which series could push the dating consoles the most. I want to give you a bit of history about these games of history starting with the shooters. There were many of them, but what about the bad ones too? Were the little guys any good? Could they stand up to Call of Duty and Medal of Honor?

Call of Duty

Release Date: 10/29/03 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 91%

PS3: 78%

Xbox 360: 72%

Sales: Unknown

Almost 2 years after Medal of Honor: Allied Assault blew PC gamers away, Call of Duty came out. A lot of people were weary because the WWII onslaught was already in full force. What could Call of Duty do that Medal of Honor couldn’t? It pushed PCs to their limits at the time and delivered a fully cinematic experience that Allied Assault didn’t quite bring. It was a fantastic game with solid mechanics and played through some of the most memorable moments of the war. This was a game that started a revolution in the WWII series and would go on to be one of the most hated series in gaming history. In 2009 an HD remake was made for PS3 and Xbox 360 but received lukewarm reception because the game just didn’t age well.

Call of Duty: United Offensive

Release Date: 9/14/04 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 86%

Sales: Unknown

After PC gamers heard that the next game in the series is going to be for consoles only they were furious. However, anger resided when the expansion was slated just a few months before the next release in the series. United Offensive was fantastic, probably even better than the original. Following Paratroopers this time as well as some highly cinematic events, United Offensive was solid and spectacular. While Medal of Honor was starting its quick descent into mediocrity Call of Duty was still holding strong. United Offensive remains one of my favorite Call of Duty games.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour

Release Date: 11/16/04 — Xbox, PS2, NGC

GameRankings: PS2: 77%

NGC: 75%

Xbox: 73%

Sales:

PS2: 2,890,000

Xbox: 1,210,000

NGC: 40,000

Finest Hour wasn’t Call of Duty 2 but was a highly anticipated spin-off until the sequel came. I remember being very excited about this because I didn’t have a PC that could run Call of Duty at the time. I remember watching all the preview videos on the OPM demo disc every month. Then I finally got it for Christmas that year, it was one of the most memorable World War II shooters I ever played. My only issue was that the grenades bounced around like rubber balls and the physics were awful, but it looked damn good. The game was highly cinematic and I had a blast and spent countless hours in the multiplayer. While this was the first Call of Duty game I played, critics were slamming the game for being another WWII shooter (which it was) and had technical issues. With that aside, it’s still worth a playthrough and is very fun.

Call of Duty

Release Date: 11/23/04 — N-Gage

GameRankings: NGE: 67%

Sales: <10,000

While Finest Hour was at the top of sales charts, Activision thought it would be cute to help support the hot new phone: The N-Gage. This was more of a toned-down shooter and phones really weren’t that powerful back then. Java games on phones were the hot new thing. Porting the original PC game to the N-Gage was a huge mistake and suffered many technical issues that were expected. The game looked good for the N-Gage but suffered from draw distance issues and the character moved too fast. With that aside, it shows that games just can’t be dumbed down this much.

Call of Duty 2

Release Date: 10/25/05 — PC

GameRankings: PC: 87%

Sales: Unknown

Here it is! Even though everyone was sick of World War II shooters by now and Medal of Honor kept digging a deeper grave, Call of Duty 2 was a must-have for PC owners. It was a new benchmark game that sold graphics cards and pushed hardware to its limits. It had high-resolution textures and great lighting effects, but could it stand up to the last game? Not really. It turned out to just be more of the same and lacked the cinematic moments of the first game. It didn’t do anything different at all but did show us some new sides of World War II that other shooters didn’t touch. It did have a strong multiplayer following for a few years until it died after everyone finally got tired of the genre.

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

Release Date: 11/1/05 — PS2, Xbox, NGC

GameRankings: PS2, Xbox: 79%

NGC: 78%

Sales:

PS2: 2,670,000

Xbox: 1,120,000

NGC: 330,000

With the next generation about to kick off with the Xbox 360, previous generation consoles were concerned about the Call of Duty series and how long it would last on these consoles. With just Finest Hour console owners were given a side game of Call of Duty 2 which was highly anticipated for Xbox 360 and was just released for PC. Big Red One was really fun but was given criticism for being so short and having mediocre multiplayer. I remember playing this and enjoying the large variety of missions and weapons, but you could beat it in about 5 hours. This would actually be the last Call of Duty to grace the GameCube due to Nintendo’s abandonment.

Call of Duty 2

Release Date: 11/17/05 — Xbox 360

GameRankings: Xbox 360: 89%

Sales: 1,830,000

While the Call of Duty releases bombarded the holidays of 2005 Call of Duty 2 was one of the most highly anticipated shooters of the year for future Xbox 360 owners. It was one of the best launch titles for the system and garnered higher praise than its PC counterpart. It went on to sell millions and nearly every 360 owners had a copy. The only issue was that the game reduced multiplayer in half down to 8 players, but was still fun. The graphics were intact and looked just as good as the PC version.

Call of Duty 3

Release Date: 11/7/06 — PS3, X360, Wii, Xbox, PS2

GameRankinsg: Xbox, PS2, X360: 82%

PS3: 81%

Wii: 69%

Sales:

X360: 2,620,000

Wii: 2,180,000

PS3: 1,390,000

PS2: 1,070,000

Xbox: <10,000

Call of Duty 3, is the sequel no one asked for. By the time the end of 2006 rolled around everyone just wanted WWII to die already. Call of Duty 2 was fine and dandy, but Activision wanted one more hoopla for next-gen consoles and, surprisingly, PS2-era consoles. It pushed previous consoles to their limits and was praised for being a solid shooter. The next-gen versions were fantastic and featured amazing visuals. I remember playing this and being blown away by the rain effects and how great the textures looked. It looked way better than Call of Duty 2 even did on PC. This also pissed PC fans off because they never got to see Call of Duty 3, but they didn’t really care. Despite all the criticism, the game was still solid and had really fun multiplayer. Call of Duty’s sales were weird with this being the best-selling game in the series so far at almost 8 million copies. The push of the next-generation consoles helped and surprisingly the Wii version was the second best selling.

Call of Duty: Roads to Victory

Release Date: 3/13/07 — PSP

GameRankings: PSP: 64%

Sales: 2,060,000

The PSP was going strong in 2007 but still hadn’t received a Call of Duty game. nearly 3 years after the handheld’s release Roads to Victory comes out which was a modification of Call of Duty 3. Being released on its own, and near the tail end of the WWII Call of Duty run, it didn’t have anything left to offer. Roads to Victory was mauled by game sites claiming it was too short, was the same thing yet again, and was way too short. It also suffered technical issues but had some really fun multiplayer. I personally enjoyed the game when it came out because FPS games on the PSP are scarce and 99% of them aren’t very good (Coded Arms). Roads to Victory is worth a look at if you are curious about this entry on PSP. The game sold surprisingly well and was a huge success on PSP despite the poor reviews. However, it didn’t quite sell as well as Medal of Honor Heroes.

Call of Duty: World at War

Release Date: 11/10/2008 — PC, X360, PS3, Wii, DS, PS2

GameRankings: PS3, X360: 85%

PC: 84%

Wii: 83%

DS: 77%

PS2: 67%

Sales:

X360: 6,930,000

PS3: 5,000,000

Wii: 1,870,000

PS2: 1,720,000

DS: 840,000

PC: 80,000

Activision had a lot of guts doing this. The World War II shooters were finally phased out, Medal of Honor became a laughing stock, and Call of Duty had several good entries even late in the genre’s life cycle. Here comes Treyarch digging the genre up again, but to everyone’s surprise, it actually does something different. Building off the success of the Modern Warfare series, Treyarch takes you to the frontlines in Japan. This was a theatre of the war that was never really touched. The engine was based on the Modern Warfare one so long gone was the old Call of Duty engine. The graphics were fantastic and the multiplayer was addictive. People welcomed this older timer with a warm embrace, but no one else followed suit, no one had the guts. World at War was very cinematic and highly enjoyable. People who hate the genre should actually give this one a spin. Surprisingly, the series was still on PS2 (deemed Final Fronts) even in late 2008, however it was considered nearly unplayable, was extremely ugly, and was just no fun at all. World at War was the best-selling game in the WWII series and the best-selling WWII game of all time at 16 million copies. The game sold surprisingly well on PS2 for being the worst version of them all, and did well on DS as well with almost a million copies sold. It did the worst on PC.

Call of Duty Classic

Release Date: 12/3/2009

GameRankings: PS3: 78%

X360: 72%

Sales: Unknown

While World at War signified the end of the series’ World War II games, Call of Duty Classic tried to reignite that flame, maybe to test the waters for a whole new game? Classic had many technical issues and the first game just doesn’t hold up like it used to. Everyone was so sick of the series by this point that a remake of the first game was not a smart move. World War II shooters are a touchy subject with gamers, and unless you do something like World at War they won’t care what highly acclaimed classic your remake. A WWII shooter is a WWII shooter.

Call of Duty’s WWII series has sold over 35 million copies making it the best-selling WWII series of all time. It sold a few million more than Medal of Honor thanks to World at War making up nearly half the sales. Despite having fewer games they were of higher quality and that’s what gamers wanted. 6 long years of constant Call of Duty releases with 2005 being the strongest. It had some highs and lows but was also the most successful World War II series ever made. Its rival Medal of Honor didn’t do so well despite running for a longer streak, however, no one knows if Call of Duty will return to World War II again, hopefully not.