Utilizing the COD 4: Modern Warfare engine, COD: World At War throws out the rule book of war to transform World War II combat through a new enemy, new tracks and an uncensored experience of the dramatic battles that gripped a generation. As U.S marines and Russian soldiers, players employ new features like cooperative gameplay, and weapons such as flamethrower in the most chaotic and dramatically intense experience to date. COD: World At War introduces cooperative play, bringing fresh meaning to the No One Fights Alone, lines with up to four players online for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC, or two player local split screen on consoles. Nintendo Wii will also supports a cooperative mode for two players. For the first time ever players can experience harrowing single player missions together for greater camaraderie and tactical execution. The cooperative campaign allows players to rank up and unlock perks in competitive multiplayer by completing challenges and earning experiences points, adding continuous re playability and team based gameplay. While playing competitively or cooperatively, if players are online with COD: World At War, then always gain experience points. Based on the player's experience rank and rank of the player's friends. COD: World At War scales dynamically to provide a deeper level challenge.
In COD: World At War there are plenty of deafening, large scale set piece battles, but there is also variation to change things up. Case in point is the PBY mission, where you man the guns on a Navy aircraft. At first glance, this seems to be a mirror to the Spectre Gunship mission in Modern Warfare, in both missions you rain fire down from above. But the Spectre Gunship mission has a cold detachment to it, those tiny blips on the screen that are humans die from a enemy that they cannot see and fight back against. In World At War's PBY mission, you are in the midst of a raging air and sea battle, taking damage and fighting for your life or there is a sniper mission to whack a German General that does not quite have the cat and mouse feeling of Modern Warfare's sniper level.
The campaign does suffer a bit due to its broad scope, the narrative skips over months at a time, showcasing the major battles of the war. The result is that the sense of the story does not seem as strong as it did in Modern Warfare. It perhaps does not help that we all know how the war eventually turned out, Modern Warfare had the advantage of a fictionalized story with plenty of shocking twists and turns.
