Call of Duty 3 is the WWII CoD from the PS3 launch era. Impressive launch graphics for the time, decent Normandy campaign, limited multiplayer. Historically important, technically dated.
Your verdict
Category
First-Person Shooter4 players16+
Description
Activision first-person shooter covering the Normandy campaign and liberation of Europe in 1944. Published by Activision, released in Europe in November 2006. Four playable factions in multiplayer, vehicle sequences, melee combat and online multiplayer. European version.
Call of Duty 3 review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
3/5
Story
★★★★★
"Solid"
A transitional entry toward the new generation, this instalment plunges into the mud of Normandy. The bocage closes off the battlefield, thick hedgerows, gutted farms, waterlogged earth and the Falaise pocket, in a European campaign grimier and closer than its predecessors. The art direction bets on the filth of the terrain, where four Allied armies advance hand to hand between the embankments.
Here the music stays in the register of the classic war film. Joel Goldsmith unfolds broad strings and solemn brass, heroic flights and hushed lines for the dead, in a reverent orchestral craft. Before the series tips toward anachronism or blockbuster, this entry still illustrates a faithful sonic reconstruction, in the manner of the great war-cinema frescoes.
A Second World War entry from Treyarch, Call of Duty 3 retraces the Normandy campaign through the eyes of American, British, Canadian and Polish soldiers, in a succession of scripted battles at an intense pace. The spectacular staging, the mood of war chaos and the sense of immersion in the conflict appeal to fans of historical military action. The linearity, dated controls and the decline of multiplayer weigh today. A good FPS for fans of the Second World War and old school scripted shooting.
