For a PS3 launch title, Call of Duty 3 does an excellent job of taking advantage of the PS3’s many facets in order to make a very competent game. The story follows the World War II through the perspective of four allied soldiers from the US, Canadian, Polish and British armies. Switching between the said forces, following large scale battles, ruins the immersion factor slightly, but the contrasting (and sometimes conflicting) personalities of your fellow fighters keeps each portion of the campaign interesting.

WWII With Motion Controls
The weapons all handle well and realistically. Each weapon looks true to its wood and iron counterpart. Just like the characters that wield them, each gun is well battle-worn. The blur effect as your sight adjusts when you take aim or adjust your aim is pulled off quite well and comes off very realistic. If there is anything that stands out about the weaponry, it is the fact that many of the guns do not. Occasionally you will find that there is not much benefit from using one gun over the other except for personal preference in precision. They all get the job done, but depending on your type of playing you may prefer one with a better sight, faster reload speed or one with a different level of recoil. Classes of weapons handle differently, but on a surface level there is not much difference between using one rifle over another; or one submachine gun over the next. You also have several types of grenades at your disposal, each with their own specific uses.

The tilt control is put to good use. You can use the controller for melee attacks as well as for various context sensitive tasks, such as planting mines, or intense one on one struggles for your life against ambushing soldiers. You can also take control of jeeps using the SIXAXIS as a steering wheel. However, if you prefer your controls the old-fashioned way, you can disable tilt and still complete the same actions. None of these actions seem overdone and are used sparingly enough that you don’t get annoying. It is an interesting take on the usual button mashing mini-game affairs. Treyarch did a good job incorporating tilt actions, so don’t be surprised to find the next wave of PS3 games using some of the same ideas here as standard. The tilt functionality uses are overall very intuitive and make you feel slightly more in control of the many tasks you face within the game.

A Well Rounded Soldier
Speaking of tasks, Call of Duty 3 places you in nearly every role a soldier could possibly take on. You go from clearing out gun nests, marking targets for air strikes, defensive missions, rescue missions, to piloting tanks yourself. They even managed to fit in stealth missions and make them all work together.

Mission tasks and objectives are usually clear and straightforward. From the beginning, it is clear that you need to do what it takes to clear out waves and waves of rather intelligent enemies. The default difficulty is not a simple affair, but the game gets particularly interesting when you dial up the difficulty level a notch or to. No matter which level of difficulty you choose, you will see the game over screen time and time again. The difficulty never gets to be too overbearing, but the developers made sure that the levels won’t exactly be a cakewalk either.