Call of Duty: World at War will be coming out in about a week. You can visit the official site here. I have both the PC and Xbox 360 betas, and since there are a lot of games coming out this holiday season, I feel like I should give my impressions on how good I think the game will be so you don’t have to waste your hard earned money.

First off, I also played the CoD 4 beta, so have a little insight on how close the beta is to the release version of the game. Also, I have no doubt in my mind that the campaign for CoD WaW will be remarkable, but if you’re interested in the multiplayer, there are some things you might find interesting.

Lets start out with the graphics. The graphics engine in CoD WaW and CoD 4 are…the same. I would say from playing the beta that CoD WaW does look a bit more polished, but no milestones were achieved in this department. At times I felt like I was playing a CoD 4 mod, much like how Day of Defeat Source is a mod of Counter Strike Source.

Graphics aren’t necessarily the most important thing in a game. To me, gameplay is much more important. After playing both the PC beta and Xbox 360 beta, I feel that the game is much more suited for the PC. I say this because there is a lack of variety in the weapon category. I don’t mean that in a sense of weapon models, but what they are capable of. To me, it seems like there is several short range and long range weapons that work wonderfully, but no good mid ranged weaponry. In CoD WaW, the mid ranged weapons are the rifles, which have limited ammunition, and if you couple that with lag and controller joysticks, it can be quite challenging to kill someone on the Xbox. When I was playing the Xbox beta, I felt more comfortable using a Thomson with an ACOG scope. I didn’t have this problem on the PC though because it is much easier to aim with a mouse and keyboard.

Also, the perks from CoD 4 have been carried over into the new CoD, and also more perks have been added such as the “Toss back” perk. This perk allows you to pick up a thrown grenade and reset the timer so you can toss it back without getting blown to smithereens. Although I still hate killing someone, then sprinting into a grenade because of their martyrdom, I think they did a good job. Another thing they did was replace the 7 kill streak bonus, instead of a helicopter you get a pack of rabid dogs! Some people think they are overpowered, but I feel like it was a nice touch. It’s always fun seeing one of your dogs lunge for the neck of an opposing soldier.

Overall I think that I like the CoD 4 multiplayer more than CoD WaW. I am a fan of modern warfare, not the over-used genre of WWII. So if you’re thinking about getting this game on release, maybe you should rent it first to make sure it’s what you’re looking for. Hope this helps!