Call of Duty 2 Review

The first sequel changed two things that every shooter afterward copied. Health packs vanished in favor of a screen that reddens and clears, which sounds like a simplification until you notice it lets the designers build encounters that expect you to break contact and reposition rather than sweep corners for medkits. And smoke became load-bearing: the North African missions hand you a grenade and a hundred meters of open ground, and crossing it is a real decision with a real cost.

The four campaigns run British, Soviet and American again, with the El Alamein and Pointe du Hoc stretches doing the heaviest work. On the Xbox 360 at launch it was the reason to own the hardware, running clean at a resolution nothing else could match that November, and the computer version still holds up structurally. The writing is thin and the mission beats repeat by the final act, so it lives on feel rather than story. As a demonstration that the series had a design philosophy and not just a license, it did the job completely.