Overall, the most impressive game for mobile devices thus far, however, annoying quirks keep it from getting the Hero of the Soviet Union Medal

C’mon you lazy apes, do your PPCs want to live forever?!    It’s time for Pocket PCs everywhere to join the fight.  Aspry unprecedented attempt to port a recent  PC game, Call of Duty 2, to a Pocket PC has finally hit the shelves.  The game boasts both 2D game play for the graphics card handicapped or a full out 3D tour for the few and the proud to have either the Intel 2700G or an Nvidia GoForce 5500 graphics chip.  However, is this going to become one of the revered elite like the 101^st Airborne, or fade into history For this review, I will be using two different Axims: the older, venerable x5 advanced running WM2003* and the newer WM2003SE powerhouse with the integrated Intel 2700G display adapter, the x50v.   The computer used with be a Thinkpad R51 with XP SP2 and all the updates, running Activesync 4.5. 

*After a week with fighting up with my screen, I will need to open up my Axim to clean it out and repair it, and that will delay the x5  par of the review.  Sorry.

FOR THE GLORY OF SOVIET RUSSIA!

Requirements:

Here is a rundown of the requirements you need when enlisting.

• A personal computer: Running Microsoft Windows 2000/XP or later with Microsoft ActiveSync 4.0 or later
• Any Pocket PC or Smartphone with 28mb of free RAM
• Windows Mobile 2003/SE or Windows Mobile 5.0
• 400 MHz Intel XScale® processor
• SD Card with 32mb free

As stated before, the hardware accelerated version requires an Intel 2700G or an Nvidia GoForce 5500 graphics chip

Any way you slice it, that’s A LOT of RAM needed to be free.  Then again, this isn’t an average, run in the mill PPC game.

Installation and set up: 6

Installation was decently straight forward.  The setup ran through the normal questions and what not and then automatically opened Activesync.  However, you must remember that you need to install it in your storage card, so do NOT click yes and default the installation to main memory, or you will not have enough RAM left to run the game in WM2003.  As RAM is not as big of a problem with WM5 devices as it is not where the programs are installed to.  Lucky you.   This game, being a RAM hog, means you may have to delete programs off your pocket PC just to play.  For some, that may be a problem. 

When you install this though, make sure you have something to do in the mean time.  Remember, it’s a 32+ MB file, and on my x50v, copying it over took long enough that I started to wish I had a stop watch timing it.  I estimated around 10 minutes, so go have dinner, do some wrist exercises, and get those fingers warmed up! 

I personally installed it to my Compact Flash card, a 2GB Crucial.

It takes about 16 seconds to get into main menu.  At least that seemed fast compared to the installation

Play

Configuration and customization: 10

Call of Duty 2 boasts a very intelligently designed menu and configuration system.  The game automatically defaults to landscape mode which is very nice and allows for a more comfortable dual hand control.  Flicking through the menus is quick as well works to engage the player in the atmosphere with a dramatic score and animated and textured icons.  Also, the menu choices work to involve the player and give an impressive amount of control.  There is a mission select so that you can relive the moments of past heroics at whim.  You can create profiles for your games for those of you who share your devices with others, or just so you can keep a profile for each difficulty method: Easy, Medium, or Hard (the differences between which will be discussed in the Game Play section).  There are defaults for both smart phones and Pocket PCs, you can adjust all the locomotive features and action features, heck, you can even adjust your touch responsive HUD.  There is a low detail mode for faster and more responsive game play for all your hard core gamers out there.   The only problem is that the game takes up the whole screen.  As all buttons are mapped to help with the game play, there is no way to pause the game and do other things on you pocket pc and then resume game play where you left off.  You’ll come to see that this isn’t that big of a deal, but, it would have been nice to have that option.

Control: 8

Control is relatively simple, and that’s amazing for a Pocket PC port.  Under default configuration, you use the stylus for aiming and looking about, just as you would a mouse in a regular first person shooter (FPS),  Your D-pad controls your cardinal movements (forwards, backwards, left and right) while your Action button is the almighty purveyor of death: the Fire button.  The fire button also doubles as your melee button if you come close enough to a Nazi, allowing you to satisfyingly beat him down Soviet style.  This combination works VERY well, but for the weak, it will leave your wrist sore.  The other buttons serve to control between switching between your weapons, crouching toggle so you can hide behind boxes or in fox holes while reloading or avoiding enemy fire, or scope for zooming into take that Vasily Zaytsev shot.   However, the latter I think, the games most fatal flaw in game play.  I even emailed Aspyr just to be sure I didn’t screw something up or miss anything.  When you use the scope or iron sights, touching the touch screen makes you fire.  In other words, YOU CANNOT ADJUST YOUR AIM!   How you orient your self when you zoom is how you’ll shoot, and strafing back and forth or left and right is the only way to change where the round is going.  This makes taking those long range shots almost impossibly tough, especially if there’s more than one German down the street.  As a soldier who appreciates the finer art of sharp shooting, it was a huge loss in my eyes.  What’s the use of having a gun with the power to kill in one shot at long range if you can’t even aim it accurately?  While you’re reloading your missed shot, you have to either find cover or take unnecessary damage.  Why, Commandant Aspyr, WHY? 

Sigh, moving along…

The HUD is very nicely designed and serves to give you options that you did not have enough buttons to map.  In default mode, there is a reload button, grenades, a pause button, which allows you to exit the game if necessary, and the Use/Action button, for doing various tasked that the Red Army will call upon you to accomplish.

Game play: 9

In the game you play as Private (Pvt.) Vasili I. Koslov of the 13^th Guards Rifle Division, which I’ve read is the same as in the PC game.  Before you start each mission, you have a choice of Easy, Normal, or Hard.  The difference between each difficulty mode is simply how quickly you succumb to your wounds.

Game play is astounding compared and really shows what the PPC is capable of.  The graphics resemble those out of Rainbow 6, with 3D polygonal form to the basic human features and great texture art.  Smooth lines and lifelike movements in a feature rich environment entreat the eyes. Your hands actually reload the guns, blood splatters and particles fly rip into people and objects respectively.  Especially on the first mission, as there are instances where you aren’t fighting alone and you watch other Russian soldiers fight with you against the Nazi horde, dying at times, you can scarcely believe that this level carnage is on the same device that you use to tell you when little Suzie’s next dentist appointment is. 

Before each mission you get a set of goals you need to accomplish from command and then are treated to text based letters from the Pvt.  Missions are linear and there aren’t any surprises in terms of changes in mission goals.  Aspyr crafted each board to make it easy to find out where to go next, even going as far as to using any help you have from friendly Russian soldiers to block your progress until you complete whatever goal Aspyr intended for you to complete before you continue.  In bare essence, you can pretty much shoot your way through the whole thing and if anything is pulsing yellow, stand next to it until you see that you can use the “Use” button, and then move on, without reading a single goal.  However, that is not to say that the missions are not fun and engaging- they are amazing.  It just makes repeated game play, well…repetitive.

In game, fighting is fast paced.  You run from place to taking out enemy soldiers that emerge in close quarters combat.  The type of gun you use to engage the soldiers also determines how many rounds it takes for a kill.  However each gun is fairly well balanced with their own strengths and weakness like the PPHS, a submachine gun (SMG) takes many more bullets to drop an enemy soldier, but it also shots them out more rapidly, allowing you to dispatch a small group of soldiers in close proximity quickly while the Enfield, a single shot rifle, has a long reload time, but one shot, one kill capacity.  That brings me back to the scope problem, but whining about it again won’t make it better.  At least you get to take your fall enemies weapons and use it against them.  Also, running over a fallen enemy with the same weapon that you have will allow you to take a clip of ammo from them.  There is no shortage of weapons in this game, as sometimes, a new level brings you a new toy to play with- or fight against.

The damage system is similar to Halo 2: you can take a pounding up to a point, but then you have to find cover and self heal before you can do it all over again.  There is no penalty after you’ve fully recovered; you’re just back to 100%.  Your screen gets an ever deepening overlay of red until you collapse, in which case you die, and start all over again.  If you do manage to find cover, or wipe out the soldiers in the room, it takes a few seconds to get back to full health.  Aspyr uses strategically placed boxes to allow you to hide if the battle gets too intense and you start taking on too much damage.  Don’t worry about alerting other soldiers or if soldiers will try to flank you; there is not a shred of AI and the game is very scripted.  Enemy soldiers, once they get in a predetermined spot, don’t tend to do more than stand and shoot, or crouch behind boxes…or even in an open space, which robs from the game play.  It almost drops it from a tense WWII FPS to an arcade shooter set in WWII.  Even in Pocket Wolfenstien, the soldiers moved around and attempted to follow you.  In one level, I once was forced to hide right on the other side of an arrangement of boxes, with two soldiers blasting away, so I could recover and neither of them came around to finish me off.  Also, enemy soldiers do not stop shooting, even after you leave the room.  I once took a stroll down the hall and through a few other rooms, hearing a constant faint barrage of gunfire, swapped my guns, and went back to finished them off.  However, what they lack in mobility, Aspyr, at times, gives the Nazis a group pop up surprise attack, maximizing the initial damage, forcing you to find cover and adding tactics and fun to the game.

Your comrades are essentially worthless.  They have TERRIBLE aim, and the shots that to hit the Germans count for naught.  They will sometimes run past Germans who are shooting you and wait for you, at the next scripted checkpoint if you get left behind.  Once, I left them in battle for 3 minutes, and when I came back, every German was there, shooting at me, with them in the middle of the fray.  Thanks guys.  What sucks even more is that you can’t execute them for leaving you to die!  They do get shot though, but that’s just a waste of bullets...

On to better things…

The sounds are great.  Aspyr does its best to fill the air with the tension of war.  The background noises of planes roar ahead, you hear the clattering or rifles in the distance, and explosions.  There are distinctive sounds for each rifle, and the but repetitive.  Also, all the sounds are in mono, not stereo, which is disappointing if you hoped for some action on some larger speakers, but a good soldier must remember that you only get what you need, and everything sounds great from the Axim’s mono speaker.  I’m guessing it saves space on your SD card and keeps install time form being any longer.

Graphics and game varies depending on the machine you use. Those fortunate enough to have a PPC with a graphics accelerator will get the full glory of the smooth lines and shadings of the game, while those without will be stuck in a pixilated world.   Sadly, my x5 is in the medical barracks, and I’ll be forced to add in my experiences with him as a comment later. 

I have no runtime/battery drain for this game.  I can only assume that it is about as intensive as playing a movie at whatever brightness your screen level will be at.  Be it my fault that I don’t have a battery meter, or that I don’t have the wrist endurance or desire for carpel tunnel’s, based on an on/off 3 hour stint, I still had more than enough battery life on an extended battery to use my Wifi and Skype the lovely ladies that I had wandered away from, then use a Bluetooth GPS to guide one of them home using my backed up ROM of my PPC. 

Found bug list:

If your PPC turns off while in a menu, screen turns red, and remains red until you press the right button (I’ve found button 1 does the trick).  If the PPC turns off when in game play, the HUD images get corrupted, but everything still functions.  Pressing the pause button does not remedy this.

Sometimes, when running down corridors, a bullet from no where nails you!  If you stand there, it will eventually kill you, despite the fact that there is no one around to shoot you and you’re completely surrounded by brick walls.  This happened more than once.

I had it crash on me, and I can only assume it was from shutting down too many times in game play.  If you want to see it crash, watch the video…also watch if you want to see me die a lot too…

Final thoughts:

This is a pretty well put together game.  It really gives you a serious bang for your buck in terms of fun, entertainment, and visual treats.  Despite a few kinks, Aspyr should be proud of themselves.  I appreciate Aspyr’s time, thought, and energy in creating such a versatile and multiplatform game that it takes the design strengths of each device and uses it to build the best and most intuitive game play possible.  I’m hoping patches will come out to fix any problems or bugs, but for now, Call of Duty 2, 1.0 Gold gets an 8.5 on my scale.  Despite all my gripes, do I recommend it?  I should put it this way: Any game that gets me through going to the mall with two ladies for 3 hours and has me leaving thinking that I had fun is worth buying.

RATING EXPLAINED

Installation 15%- 6- 90

Game play: 50%- 9- 450

Control: 20%- 8- 160

Customization: 15%- 10- 150

Add em up 850

850 out of a possible 1000= 8.5