Call of Duty: World at War: Activision's second "CoD 4" clone this month

I'm starting to notice a pattern in recent Activision action game releases. First I reviewed "Quantum of Solace" and found it to be a decent action game, but almost directly ripped off of "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare," with basically just new set pieces and a few gameplay adjustments. Now Variety critic Tom Chick has reviewed "Call of Duty: World at War" and says it's pretty much the same thing.

It's obviously no coincidence both games were developed by Treyarch and both made using the "Call of Duty 4" engine. But lots of games use the same engine and don't look and play almost exactly the same. As Tom wrote to introduce his review:

The fifth entry in Activision's annual "Call of Duty" military franchise may return to its World War II roots and come from a different developer, but virtually everything that's good about it stems directly from last year's "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare." The impressive graphics, compelling multiplayer and even the basic gunplay in "World at War" are all iterations of "CoD 4," minus that game's character, urgency and relevance. The result is a forgettable, mostly middling shooter that will sell decently, but fall far short of "Modern Warfare's" boffo 10 million-plus units.

Usually as an editor I don't like a review of a new game to reference an older one so much, but in the case of "World at War" it seemed eminently justifable. The multi-player in particular, Tom notes, is almost a note-for-note rip-off from "CoD 4" with only cosmetic changes (packs of guard dogs instead of air strikes, etc.) Of course, multi-player in "Modern Warfare" was (and still is) so good that it's still the best part of "World at War." And as Tom notes, there are a few other cool touches, like a fantastic airplane sequence and the fire effects (though I'm with Tom in doubting that German soldiers really used flamethrowers to defend the Reichstag).

If you're going to copy, you should of course copy from the best, which is why both these games are still pretty good. But given that neither "Quantum of Solace" nor "World at War" have particularly innovative or compelling campaigns, and that the online multi-player community for "Modern Warfare" is still going strong, I think most gamers will have to ask, "Why bother?"

Full review: Call of Duty: World at War