Published by: Activision
Developed by: Treyarch / Gray Matter Studios
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Release Date:
US: November 1, 2005

ESRB Content Descriptors: Blood, Mild Language, Violence

Quote :

"In the Big Red One's Wake Welcome to the jungle, baby! You're gonna die! by Ivan Sulic October 17, 2005 - Activision recently held an event. At this event were many systems running Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. Following a lovely meal and a few icy colas, we sat ourselves down in front of one such system and played at being World War II heroes for a spell. We played very well. And then the Blood Rage was upon us. Let the mothers and sisters of the Axis powers weep! Our wrath will not yield! Let the bodies of their shamed sons salt their cursed lands! We'll break every man in our path and take our victory with the iron fist of freedom! Then we'll help ourselves to all the cattle and women and wonderful chocolates of our choosing! So sayeth the Blood Rage! The first level we played at Activision's event was Operation Husky. It began with a nighttime beach raid against a heavily entrenched German army. As our Allied forces approached land, a nearby commander spotted some unsavory mines floating on the surface of the bay. That didn't seem very welcoming. No. I don't think our Blood Rage liked that one bit. Cowards! They hide behind a wall of remote explosives, too afraid to meet their deaths nobly! The mere thought of us has unmanned them! Doubtless they're quivering beneath their mum's teats suckling for their very lives! Har! Hahaha! Let's just run over these mines to spite them! Then if we die our ghosts can kill them worse! Since the famed Big Red One wasn't actually in the habit of exploding, we took charge of our landing craft's top-mounted machinegun and began destroying the mines before they could impact our hull. Once the way was clear, it wasn't long until our vehicle slammed into land and the good men of the Fighting First made their way up sand and soil, through blood and smoke. You think bullets can hurt men born from fire? Fools! We'll eat your lead and drink your napalm before we tear your bunkers down with hand and foot...and some really big explosive things! Then we'll start with the stabbings! Oh yes. There will be many stabbings! Prisoners are for the weak! Articles of war are for traitors and conspirators! After darting and weaving through a surprisingly unpleasant beach we eventually stumbled into a series of unstable trenches that led our unit in and out of bunkers teeming with Germans. They didn't take too kindly to our approach and met our advances with gunfire. The scripted sequences that followed sped us hurriedly through a mad storm that eventually spilt into a sprawling town. It was then that we realized just how long we had been playing. This level began with a boat ride, kicked off with a beach storm, improved with trench warfare, exploded with bunker infiltrations, and then went bananas with a town raid. Even our own Blood Rage felt a bit overwhelmed by it all. Yes. Yes. Yes. You've been killed already!. Just admit defeat. Good grief, the rest of you will all be killed, too. There's plenty of killing to be had. Just wait in the bloody queue. The great destroyer will be upon you all in due time. Having experienced the breadth of Operation Husky, we switched over to a few other chapters to reinvigorate our spirits. There's nothing quite like a new fight to wake a man's soul, anyway. But first there should be burritos! Else there'll be more death applied to you! Much more! Next up was a quaint little level called Farewell to Friends. Apparently the chaps in and around Troina, Sicily became rather quarrelsome and needed to be chastised by the Allied force. After making our way into a bombed town, we were thrust into a frightening series of tight gunfights along the spiraling claustrophobic streets old Italy is known for. The Blood Rage liked the spontaneous combat a little too much. Every corner I turn yields targets! If there were an icebox of chilled beer and a healthy amount of naked women here I'd be in man's heaven! Har! Who wants to take sweet care of my bullets next! I have plenty to send off! Hey, nice house! Other levels we enjoyed included Piano Lupo, which forced us to methodically down incoming fighters on runs against our own army's vital defense infrastructure. A truck-mounted flak cannon and a considerate radar made pinpointing and annihilating these enemies easy, so long as we could prioritize the on-target threats over those making less lethal strafing runs. Stupid flies. Our wrath is not bound to the Earth. The hand of the warrior will stretch to the moon if it means marking another kill on our oversized Texan style belts. You'll not hide with the hiding or fly in the...SHUT UP! After a dozen or more fighters transformed into fiery balls of orange and red, our unit spread out across a nearby church, hitting some light resistance. Eventually we stumbled onto a bridge crowded by a stalled German convoy. They were taken care of handedly with a quick call to the artillery masters. Not so sure how I feel about that one. I mean, I'm the Blood Rage, so I like the whole idea of mass death, but without the spray of fear on my face, I can't say I'm wholly satisfied by it. Maybe I could ride the bomb down next time and fire a few shots off with my pistol while cackling like a maniac? Yeah. Oh yeah! I really think that would be delightful. Finally we partook in a mission called Liberator. As a member of a bomber crew it was our job to run about the plane manning various turrets and occasionally dropping a payload or two onto nearby destroyers. For some reason I just can't get behind shooting vehicles. It's like kicking boxes. That's just not Blood Rage's style. Oh don't get me wrong, thousands of people die with every bomb and that's cool and all, it's just that I can't help but feel a little cheated. After all the raging and fighting we came to one conclusion, Call of Duty is pretty rad and feels intense...most of the time (the Blood Rage doesn't like swatting flies). In any event, Big Red One has us wanting to experience more of its slickly presented action that highlights nicely scripted sequences and some genuinely cool bursts of suspense. The graphics and sound are obviously top notch, and so too is the control, which incidentally feels exactly like the 360 version. So Big Red One really should be the ultimate war shooter for current generation owners when it comes out later this year. "

10/21/2005 12:30:16 PM

Quote :

"Call of Duty: Big Red One Impressions Updated impressions, plus new details and screens. by Juan Castro August 17, 2005 - "World War II-era first-person shooters are totally played out." Christian Busic, creative director at Treyarch, thinks the above statement is ludicrous. On the contrary, Busic, the man behind Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, believes that W.W.II can never really go stale. That specific era brims with thousands of different stories, argues Busic, and just as many ways to tell them. That's why Big Red One, sequel to Call of Duty: Finest Hour, has turned to the titular 'Big Red One' to drive the action and narrative. Now, if only we knew what 'Big Red One' stood for... Actually, 'Big Red One' is a nickname for the US Army's 1st Infantry Division, which has won more medals and spearheaded more attacks than perhaps any other group in the Army. The Big Red One, whose name comes from a patch stitched on the uniform of its members, were the first Army division to push through North Africa and Europe during the war. The "Fighting First" also played pivotal roles in Operation Husky, Torch and Overlord. Its members secured over 20,000 medals and awards and suffered over 20,000 casualties during the course of the war. Big Red One, as a first-person shooter, aspires to capture the camaraderie and heroism displayed by the real members of the US Army's 1st Infantry Division. To ensure they did the job right, Activision secured a pair of military advisors, retired Army Captain John Hillan and retired Lieutenant Colonel Hank Kiersey, to help supply the development team with everything from proper military lingo to information on weapons and tactics. "We regularly talk about weapons and tactics, about the effects of artillery, organization of infantry platoons, the importance of machine gun emplacement, and how maneuver and fire is the bread and butter of an infantry squad's ability to advance on a determined enemy," said Kiersey. "And, it's been a pleasure to see the kind of authenticity that our work has helped to contribute into games like this one." Working with military advisors is only one of many methods developers used to infuse Big Red One with an air of authenticity. The creative team also sought a plethora of real-world weapons and fired them to record sound effects from the game. According to Busic, every weapon in the game has a real-world counterpart used in the making of Big Red One. Even vehicles, when possible, were found and fired up to record sound sample. Obviously, finding working vehicles from W.W.II is no easy task, and the team admits to only finding some, but the fact they tried at all is impressive. When it came time to find actors for motion capture work, the development team was just as thorough as it was with recording sound from weapons and vehicles. Unlike many games using motion capture technology, Big Red One cast a specific actor for each starring role in the game. And the actors wore more than just a wired bodysuit - each actor had his facial movements recorded while providing voices for their digital counterparts. The hope for all of this, of course, is to lend each character as much uniqueness as possible. Actually seeing the game in motion, we could see the efforts paid off; while subtle, each character sounds and moves differently, adding that extra layer of immersion key to an experience like this one. Big Red One differs from Finest Hour by focusing on a single squad and keeping players as the same soldier during the entire game, which spans three years. During this time, squad mates will age, both physically and emotionally. And, in keeping with the realities of war, many of the soldiers you start the game with won't be around to see the end. According to developers, a player will spend upwards of five hours with a character only to have his head blown off mid-conversation by an enemy sniper. Hey, if it happened during W.W.II combat, then it's probably in this game. Recently, Activision reps and Christian Busic dropped by the IGN offices to demo the first level of Big Red One. First off, the game looks damn impressive. Running on the PS2, Big Red One is perhaps the single best-looking W.W.II shooter to hit consoles. Unfortunately, Activision only demoed the PS2 version, but there's a good chance the Xbox and GameCube versions look equally sweet. And it's not just the quality of the textures, either. Big Red One manages to cram a mind-bending amount of detail into each and every sequence of gameplay. Simply put, the game looks amazing. The first level of the game featured crumbling buildings, air raids, crashing planes, dozens of soldiers charging down a mountainside, and more debris than anyone would care to mention. It really is hard to understate how cinematic and immersive this sequence really was. Plus, the framerate remained solid throughout. Factor in the months left to polish things up and bam, Big Red One is well on its way to becoming one of the best-looking shooters to ever grace consoles. Interestingly, Busic affectionately called this introductory sequence the "James Bond sequence" due to its brevity and high number of explosions. Also, developers wanted to start with this particular level, which is actually close to the end of the game, as a starting point to show gamers where the experience will take them. After it's over however, the game throws the player back a few years through a flashback sequence, which then starts the proper chronological flow of the game. So, the game looks good. And it looks to play well, too. Unfortunately, Busic wouldn't let go of the damn controller, so IGN staffers played spectator the entire time. But from the demo, it was easy to see that Big Red One benefits from better A.I., friendly and hostile. Allied units will now bark out warnings when they spot enemy soldiers creeping along a wall or building. They'll also inform fellow soldiers (main player included) whenever an enemy has chucked a grenade, or when they spot an enemy tank. They'll yell things like "Third Floor!" and "On your left!" and "Behind that wall!" Hell, squad mates will even chastise the player when not properly covered from enemy fire. Plus, they'll do it in a way that makes sense and is beneficial to the player. So not only does in-game chatter sound cool, but is historically accurate and helpful as well. Activision has admitted that Big Red One will feature online multiplayer for the PS2 and Xbox, yet won't comment on game modes, maps and other such details. As it stands, Big Red One looks awesome and looks to deliver an immersive experience knee-deep in gritty warfare. But that doesn't change the fact that it's set during W.W. II…and, well, isn't that getting old? "I am asked a lot whether I think the W.W. II genre is played out," says Busic, "And I'm always fascinated with that question. There are a lot of stories left and as many ways to tell them. I think for Big Red One we did a great job of giving that to the player. It really is a personal experience." And there you have it. "

10/21/2005 12:36:21 PM

10/21/2005 12:41:13 PM

The demo they showed us was ill, still pictures dont really show how great this game looks and feels

combined with even a subpar sound system, the game is really immersive....very cinematic


I'd type more but gotta head out, but be on the lookout for a 4 on 4 tournament for this game the last week of November

10/21/2005 12:42:31 PM

^Would the tourney be on the computer or console? Interested either way, haha.

10/21/2005 1:06:26 PM

Xbox more than likely. unless i can find some multitaps for PS2

10/21/2005 1:11:38 PM

So would we be playing COD2 or the first one in the tournament?

10/21/2005 1:55:16 PM

CoD2

10/21/2005 2:00:16 PM

^ its a Pin in the same design as the sticker just couldnt get a good pic



[Edited on October 28, 2005 at 8:20 PM. Reason : bucs sign not included]

10/28/2005 8:19:31 PM

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/663/663654p1.html

8.5

Quote :

"Call of Duty: Big Red One is a solid WWII-based first-person shooter with tight controls and a convincing marriage of scripted cinemas and dynamic action. With bullets whizzing by, planes soaring overhead, and explosions rocking the battlefield, the game definitely captures the intensity of war that up until recently was only duplicated in movies. Sure enough, it's during these frantic moments, which are plentiful, that gamers will find themselves fully captivated and entertained. But the experience is still not perfect. In its attempt to direct the action as it would a movie, the developer has either by design or by accident compromised the non-linear structure of levels and I think that is a mistake. I understand the choice, but in my experience it has at least partly backfired. The go-anywhere freedom associated with conventional FPSs is not in Big Red One. Players are sometimes unmistakably limited to set paths and running into invisible barriers occasionally breaks from the immersive true-world presentation that the title aspires to deliver. It's not a make or break shortcoming -- the game is still fun -- but it is nevertheless a noteworthy frustration. "

11/2/2005 12:45:46 PM

i'm a fan of killing zee germans.

11/2/2005 2:41:06 PM

Quote :

"Call of Duty: Big Red One is a solid WWII-based first-person shooter with tight controls and a convincing marriage of scripted cinemas and dynamic action. With bullets whizzing by, planes soaring overhead, and explosions rocking the battlefield, the game definitely captures the intensity of war that up until recently was only duplicated in movies. Sure enough, it's during these frantic moments, which are plentiful, that gamers will find themselves fully captivated and entertained. But the experience is still not perfect. In its attempt to direct the action as it would a movie, the developer has either by design or by accident compromised the non-linear structure of levels and I think that is a mistake. I understand the choice, but in my experience it has at least partly backfired. The go-anywhere freedom associated with conventional FPSs is not in Big Red One. Players are sometimes unmistakably limited to set paths and running into invisible barriers occasionally breaks from the immersive true-world presentation that the title aspires to deliver. It's not a make or break shortcoming -- the game is still fun -- but it is nevertheless a noteworthy frustration. "

11/2/2005 3:30:36 PM

motherfucker i bold the good stuff

THATS HOW MARKETING WORKS

but yea, with the cinematic nature of the game, having a free-roaming feel just wouldnt work

11/2/2005 5:04:16 PM

jesus activision must have a hold on a lot of the game market they have a diverse selection

11/2/2005 6:19:29 PM

^^yea, just don't copy a crappy quote in with a good quote

11/2/2005 6:21:49 PM

^^Of course, Activision was the first third-party publisher ever.

11/2/2005 6:26:55 PM

hahah, well I can't be COMPLETELY biased

and yea, thats what makes Activision such a big player in the industry, a broad selection of quality games, not pigeonholed like EA

11/2/2005 7:25:04 PM