Call of Duty: Black Ops II is a 2012 first-person shooter developed by Treyarch and published by Activision.It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360 on November 12, 2012, and for the Wii U on November 18 in North America and November 30 in PAL regions. Back 2 Fronts mod for Call of Duty 2 Developed over years, the full released looks like it happened early 2016, late 2015. Based on COD2, this mod adds: new campaign missions, new characters, better textures, sprinting. Final Fronts and Declassified is the only COD games not available to me as an Xbox and PC gamer. I am resigned to not having them, unless I buy a PS5 and they add back compatibility.
Check out our video review:
https://youtu.be/K96WmB9xsXE
My gateway into to the Call of Duty series was Call of Duty 2. I was still in high school when it came out and I remember playing it on my laptop that could barely run any new games but like most games I would play on that thing, I would keep the settings and resolution low and that would suffice. At the time I had never played the first game so I had no idea what I was in for. I just wanted to shoot shit. Ultimately, I ended up with a lot of fond memories because it wasn’t like any other World War II shooter that I played before it. It was intense, it was my first time experiencing the iron sights mechanic, and the gameplay doesn’t require much thinking. Just aim, shoot, and stay in cover. Developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, Call of Duty 2 was released for PC in October, 2005 and Xbox 360 in November of that same year. For this review, I played the PC version. I’ll also be covering the Back2Fronts Mod which revamps the gameplay and includes new weapons, missions, and enemies, among other things.
Just like the first game, you play as multiple silent protagonists across three separate campaigns. The game starts with the Soviet campaign and it’s the shortest of the three. You play as Private Vasili Koslov of the 13th Guards Rifle Division. You’ll destroy a German stronghold in Stalingrad, capture a rail-yard and train station, and the campaign ends with you capturing and defending Stalingrad city hall. In the British campaign you primarily play as Sergeant John Davis of the 7th Armoured Division but a couple missions have you playing as British tank commander David Welsh. This campaign takes you through Africa and David’s missions in particular have you driving a tank where you blast away German tanks and infantry. These missions play out just like the tank missions in the first game. As Sergeant Davis you’ll destroy a German supply station, defend a town from German counter attacks, and the final mission of the campaign takes place during the Battle for Caen as part of Operation Overlord. In the third and final campaign you play as American Corporal Bill Taylor of the 2nd Ranger Battalion. The Saving Private Ryan influence is immediately apparent at the start of this campaign with the first mission having you take part in the assault of Pointe du Hoc on the coast of Normandy. After this you’ll capture a nearby town, serve as a sniper against German mortar crews, and you’ll even take part in the capture of Hill 400, otherwise known as the capture of Bergstein. And the final mission has you taking part in Operation Plunder, at the Rhine River crossing into Germany. I think it’s obvious that the story is made up of your typical World War II stuff you’ve probably seen in other shooters. Basically you taking part in video game versions of historic missions across three separate campaigns. That’s really the jist of it. There are no real standout characters and the voice acting is decent. It’s actually a little better than what we heard in the first game. All missions are separated by loading screens that include images of a letter, journal entry, or something of that nature detailing the events of your mission and sometimes you’ll get to watch actual footage from the war. The Back2Fronts mod extends the single player with all new missions. In the Soviet campaign, you’ll get captured and need to break out of prison, you’ll be sniping enemies in Stalingrad, even take part in the Siege of Leningrad. One of the new American missions has you clearing out a farm and and forest of Germans forces before capturing and defending the town of Angoville. Another has you eliminating German mortar crews before clearing out German resistance in the village of St. Lamaire. You’ll also disable a communications base. You’ll have to secure the town of Touffreville and establish a field HQ in a church in one of the new British missions. The mod also includes a new German campaign with two missions. The first has you capturing key structures in Stalingrad and the other has you pushing back British paratroopers and destroying enemy field guns.
All of the characters, minus the tank commander, play exactly the same. You can run, jump, crouch, crawl, lean left and right, man turrets, mantle over small objects, perform a melee attack, hold your breath to steady your aim when sniping, and aim down your sights. Speaking of iron sights, Call of Duty 2 offers the option to disable crosshairs if you really want to immerse yourself in the combat. There’s four difficulty modes – Easy, Regular, Hardened, and Veteran – and you must complete one mission to advance to the next. Any already completed missions can be replayed from the mission select menu. Now the Back2Fronts mod gives you more options in general, all of which are meant to help you customize your experience for more realistic or immersive gameplay. You can select or randomize different weapon loadouts for missions, enable or disable friendly fire, toggle on and off the ally names that appear over the AI characters, you have the option to disable music, even the ability to change different aspects of the HUD which has been redesigned in the mod. Back2Fronts also adds a few new immersive mechanics to the gameplay that fit in well with Call of Duty 2’s fast-paced action. The mod adds in sprinting which does drain stamina but allows you to quickly move from location to location. As opposed to the vanilla game, several weapons have alternate fire modes and many of the new scoped weapons include an actual scope view when aiming which is really cool and adds a bit of a immersion. The mod also allows you to carry light machine guns, which is not something you can normally do in the vanilla game. Call of Duty 2 ditches the necessity of acquiring health kits to restore health in favor of a regenerating health system. This mechanic, alone, makes it obvious that Call of Duty 2 is not in anyway an accurate or realistic depiction of what soldiers experience during combat. Not that the first game was realistic by any means but I think regenerating health was introduced to put more of an emphasis on the action and the game’s cinematic style. I actually don’t mind regenerating health in most games so I’m not really complaining. Call of Duty 2 includes and auto save function. However, the game doesn’t always save at the best times. For example, the game decided to save right before an enemy tank blew me away so every time I loaded the checkpoint, I would die immediately, forcing me to restart the mission. Yeah, that can be frustrating. In one of the Back2Fronts missions, I eliminated all but one of the German mortar crews and not once did it save during that time so, of course, I died and had to do it all over again.
You’re going to be blasting away tons of German enemies and at your disposal is your typical arsenal of World War II weaponry. If you’ve played any other World War II shooter ever, all of the weapons should be familiar. You’ve got the M1 Garand, Thompson submachine gun, MP40, Kar-98, Lee-Enfield, MP44, M1911, and other weapons that were used during the war. Each campaign exposes you to different weapons and others, like the German weapons, can be found throughout the environments or acquired from fallen enemies. The Back2Fronts mod includes a lot of new weapons and it’s possible you may not get a chance to use all of them on your first run through the mod. The mod adds in the FG42, MP41, ZB26, and more. It adds new grenades and even new artillery guns like the PAK43 and German C36 for example. Now while it may be obvious that you’re doing most of the legwork, the game still manages to emphasize the fact that you’re just a small part of a large conflict. You’re always going to be accompanied by fellow soldiers. And, yes, the friendly AI is still annoying. They like to get in your way and they become a real nuisance in corridors and doorways. I’ve also seen them just standing around not shooting at nearby enemies. The enemy AI is decent. They’ll run around, take cover, shoot at you, and some enemies will even carry and deploy light machine guns. Ultimately, they do the basics. However, they are very grenade happy. In fact, I think there’s more grenades flying around than bullets. It’s insane. I don’t know if it was the developer’s attempt to keep you moving, like to flush you out of cover, but the enemies are always throwing grenades, usually right at your feet. Sometimes two or three are thrown right at you which can become irritating. Grenades are literally everywhere, you’ll never run out of grenades, and both the friendly and enemy AI can pick up and throw back live grenades. For some reason, you lack this ability and that’s unfortunate because it could have been extremely useful. Call of Duty 2 adds smoke grenades into the mix and these are actually one of the more useful tools at your disposal. Smoke grenades will cover your movement, making it easy to flank enemies or get past enemy machine gunners and tanks. The Back2Fronts mod adds in new character models to the roster including German Honorguards, German Winter SS, summer Russians, and even British Paratroopers.
Now that I’ve played this again years after release and after finally playing the first game, I can honestly say that not much has changed here since the original. Sure, there’s obvious visual improvements and some tweaks to the gameplay but if you’ve played the first game, most of the experience here feels exactly the same. Run, shoot, blow something up, rinse and repeat. On your HUD is a compass with a star, sometimes lettered icons, that identify exactly where you need to go. You can also bring up a list of objectives at any time during gameplay so it’s basically impossible to get lost or not know what to do. Call of Duty 2 is a very scripted experience but unlike the first game you are given a little freedom during missions. While the first game holds your hand every step of the way, Call of Duty 2 removes the training wheels but there’s still somebody there to make sure you don’t fall. That’s the best way to describe it. Every mission is linear for the most part but many areas allow you to approach encounters and situations in slightly different ways. But don’t get too excited, the battles will still play out the same no matter how you change up your approach. It’s just that now you don’t have to tackle it the exact same way on repeated playthroughs. Straying too far off the beaten path will result in your death because instead of invisible walls are minefields, identified by small signs in the ground. During many missions, it feels like you’re navigating from one small battle arena to another. And within those arenas are numerous paths to your objective. Some missions throw in multiple objectives that can be completed in any order and these are actually a nice change of pace compared to the typical style of making a beeline from here to there. Even though you’re given more options when it comes to completing objectives, it’s still a linear experience at heart. All I’m saying is don’t go into this thinking the missions offer complete freedom as seen in a game like Medal of Honor: European Assault for example.
If you’ve played other military-style shooters or World War II shooters in general, the objectives, themselves, are nothing really new. You’ll be defending areas which means fending off waves of Germans before the timer reaches zero. You’ll have to blow up German artillery and tanks, secure documents, infiltrate buildings and clear out hostiles, man anti-aircraft guns to shoot down enemy planes, and other stuff like that. There’s far less vehicle missions compared to the first game and the only vehicles you get to drive are tanks. Any other time you’re in a vehicle or form of transport, it’s usually as a passenger. Most of the time you’re engaging enemies on-foot. Now you will be engaging enemy vehicles quite frequently, usually enemy tanks. Sometimes you have blow up moving tanks which can prove to be a challenge if you don’t know how to utilize smoke grenades. Many objectives require you to capture an area or push back enemy forces. This normally involves you shooting every enemy in sight and advancing forward. However, you will receive no real help from your fellow soldiers outside of them distracting and killing a few nearby enemies. If you need to advance on an enemy position, they won’t move without you. Killing enemies is much easier if you stay with your squad but if you move too far ahead, you can easily be outnumbered and killed so it’s best to move forward little by little. You can always run really far ahead and wait for your allies to catch up in which case they usually clear out the area of enemies but considering you would be surrounded and assaulted with grenades before they can get there, that makes it a risky move. The Back2Fronts mod include objectives that follow the mold of the vanilla game. Run, shoot, defend an area, blow something up, etc. However, there are some annoyances. One of the new Soviet missions has you charging at enemies across an open battlefield with very little cover and if you don’t throw smoke grenades, you’re basically guaranteed to die. This sequence in particular can be very trial and error. There’s another mission that has you sniping enemies and I learned the hard way that if you move where you’re not supposed to, you just die immediately but there’s no real obvious warning. The St. Lamaire mission is cool in design but constantly getting shot through the foliage means it’s very hard to take cover from gunfire, making it a bit tedious to get through. This mission also requires you to clear out houses of German forces and the friendly AI refused to accompany me, forcing me to clear out each house by myself.
Call of Duty 2 showcases an obvious visual improvement over the first game. The character models and texture work looked pretty good for the time, you can see little details like scratches and grooves on weapons, I love the smoke effects, and there’s a decent amount of particle effects that help enhance the action. By today’s standards, the game clearly looks dated but I remember it looking pretty great back in when it released. The new and redesigned weapons introduced in the Back2Fronts mod look great and the reload animations that accompany the new weapons look pretty good as do the vanilla reload animations in general. I do think some of the new missions in Back2Fronts could use some more lighting or brightness adjustments because some areas are just very dark, making hard to see. You don’t get a flashlight or anything so you just have to deal with it. Some things haven’t aged gracefully like character animations which can appear stiff at times, enemy death animations are scripted, object and foliage pop-in is rampant, you can see distant models are low-poly, and some of the backgrounds can appear blurry. I also wish there were more gore effects. Now the audio work is basically on the same level as the first game which means it’s good. During combat you’ll hear plenty of explosions, gunfire, soldiers will be shouting and screaming, you may hear planes soaring overhead, and the sound effects in general do a great job at making the battles feel intense. Even when there’s nothing to shoot, which isn’t often, you’ll hear gunfire and explosions in the distance. My only complaint is that the tank machine gun fire sounds weak. I had the same complaint with the first game. Back2Fronts includes all kinds of new sound effects. Gunfire now sounds realistic, more powerful, and it’s satisfying to hear the echo of your shots. There’s even new enemy death sound effects like new choking and gargling sounds. As for the music, I’ll be honest, I don’t really notice it. The sounds of the gameplay easily drown out most of the music and none of the tunes I can think of really stand out to me. I know the Back2Fronts mod includes new menu music. I don’t know the name of this song but it sounds creepy as fuck and it manages to create a really grim atmosphere. It’s quite memorable. I love it. It’s just a shame you don’t hear it more often like during gameplay. When talking about the performance, the vanilla game ran smooth. Back2Fronts ran fine for the most part but during a couple of missions, the frame rate randomly took a shit. I also experienced a few bugs during my time with the mod. I did get stuck in an object and couldn’t move. One mission requires you to clear out a house and when I did that the objective wouldn’t complete. Eventually, a random German spawned inside the house and I was finally able to proceed after I killed him. Also when playing one of the standard missions with the mod, I was required to enter an armored car but the car wouldn’t move to our next objective and I couldn’t get out. Finally, in one of the American missions, I couldn’t plant explosives to blow up the enemy support vehicle.
I had fun with Call of Duty 2 but now that I’ve played it again, I can honestly say that my love for this entry compared to the rest is purely due to nostalgia. Going into this, I thought there was more of a reason I enjoyed this entry the most. But, no. It’s just nostalgia. I admit it because it’s true. When I first played this years ago, I had never played the original game but now that I have, I can’t really say what makes this leaps and bounds better than the first. It looks better and includes some tweaks and minor additions but there’s really nothing about Call of Duty 2 that makes it significantly different than its predecessor, at least when talking about the single player. The core gameplay is basically unchanged. It’s not a bad game or anything and considering how popular this entry is, I’m actually surprised it never received any expansions. I’m not considering Call of Duty 2: Big Red One as an expansion. I’m talking about a real expansion pack like Call of Duty’s United Offensive expansion. This was my first time modding the game and I think the Back2Fronts mod is an excellent piece of work that deserves recognition. It makes some significant changes that can really enhance the experience and get you immersed in the combat. The new missions are a great extension of the game that also fit in with the mold of the existing ones. If you enjoy the Call of Duty 2 gameplay, Back2Fronts is just more of the same with some added bonuses. Although, it does have some technical issues and bugs that can stop progress, forcing you to either load previously saved games, restart missions, or cheat. Hopefully these will be ironed out in future releases if it’s even still being developed.
Die deutschen wulf koepke pdf viewer. Ultimately, I would recommend Call of Duty 2 to fans of the series and first-person shooters. Even though I realized that my love for the game is due to nostalgia, it does include some new features that I consider to be improvements over the first game so based on that, alone, I would say this is the better entry, overall. However, if you’ve never played the original or this before, I can’t really say there’s a lot here that makes it drastically different. It’s a bit faster paced, there’s a little more freedom when it comes to missions, and there’s plenty of action. I never did try the multiplayer in this game but maybe the developers changed it up significantly compared to that of the original, I don’t know. Call of Duty 2 is a solid game and I would put it up there on my list of excellent World War II shooters. It’s a very scripted experience with cinematic influences and I can’t say there’s a lot of replay value when it comes to the single player but at least it’s fun from beginning to end.
Check out our video review:
https://youtu.be/K96WmB9xsXE
My gateway into to the Call of Duty series was Call of Duty 2. Minecraft scp texture pack download. I was still in high school when it came out and I remember playing it on my laptop that could barely run any new games but like most games I would play on that thing, I would keep the settings and resolution low and that would suffice. At the time I had never played the first game so I had no idea what I was in for. I just wanted to shoot shit. Ultimately, I ended up with a lot of fond memories because it wasn’t like any other World War II shooter that I played before it. It was intense, it was my first time experiencing the iron sights mechanic, and the gameplay doesn’t require much thinking. Just aim, shoot, and stay in cover. Developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, Call of Duty 2 was released for PC in October, 2005 and Xbox 360 in November of that same year. For this review, I played the PC version. I’ll also be covering the Back2Fronts Mod which revamps the gameplay and includes new weapons, missions, and enemies, among other things.
Call Of Duty 2 Back2fronts
Just like the first game, you play as multiple silent protagonists across three separate campaigns. The game starts with the Soviet campaign and it’s the shortest of the three. You play as Private Vasili Koslov of the 13th Guards Rifle Division. You’ll destroy a German stronghold in Stalingrad, capture a rail-yard and train station, and the campaign ends with you capturing and defending Stalingrad city hall. In the British campaign you primarily play as Sergeant John Davis of the 7th Armoured Division but a couple missions have you playing as British tank commander David Welsh. This campaign takes you through Africa and David’s missions in particular have you driving a tank where you blast away German tanks and infantry. These missions play out just like the tank missions in the first game. As Sergeant Davis you’ll destroy a German supply station, defend a town from German counter attacks, and the final mission of the campaign takes place during the Battle for Caen as part of Operation Overlord. In the third and final campaign you play as American Corporal Bill Taylor of the 2nd Ranger Battalion. The Saving Private Ryan influence is immediately apparent at the start of this campaign with the first mission having you take part in the assault of Pointe du Hoc on the coast of Normandy. After this you’ll capture a nearby town, serve as a sniper against German mortar crews, and you’ll even take part in the capture of Hill 400, otherwise known as the capture of Bergstein. And the final mission has you taking part in Operation Plunder, at the Rhine River crossing into Germany. I think it’s obvious that the story is made up of your typical World War II stuff you’ve probably seen in other shooters. Basically you taking part in video game versions of historic missions across three separate campaigns. That’s really the jist of it. There are no real standout characters and the voice acting is decent. It’s actually a little better than what we heard in the first game. All missions are separated by loading screens that include images of a letter, journal entry, or something of that nature detailing the events of your mission and sometimes you’ll get to watch actual footage from the war. The Back2Fronts mod extends the single player with all new missions. In the Soviet campaign, you’ll get captured and need to break out of prison, you’ll be sniping enemies in Stalingrad, even take part in the Siege of Leningrad. One of the new American missions has you clearing out a farm and and forest of Germans forces before capturing and defending the town of Angoville. Another has you eliminating German mortar crews before clearing out German resistance in the village of St. Lamaire. You’ll also disable a communications base. You’ll have to secure the town of Touffreville and establish a field HQ in a church in one of the new British missions. The mod also includes a new German campaign with two missions. The first has you capturing key structures in Stalingrad and the other has you pushing back British paratroopers and destroying enemy field guns.
All of the characters, minus the tank commander, play exactly the same. You can run, jump, crouch, crawl, lean left and right, man turrets, mantle over small objects, perform a melee attack, hold your breath to steady your aim when sniping, and aim down your sights. Speaking of iron sights, Call of Duty 2 offers the option to disable crosshairs if you really want to immerse yourself in the combat. There’s four difficulty modes – Easy, Regular, Hardened, and Veteran – and you must complete one mission to advance to the next. Any already completed missions can be replayed from the mission select menu. Now the Back2Fronts mod gives you more options in general, all of which are meant to help you customize your experience for more realistic or immersive gameplay. You can select or randomize different weapon loadouts for missions, enable or disable friendly fire, toggle on and off the ally names that appear over the AI characters, you have the option to disable music, even the ability to change different aspects of the HUD which has been redesigned in the mod. Back2Fronts also adds a few new immersive mechanics to the gameplay that fit in well with Call of Duty 2’s fast-paced action. The mod adds in sprinting which does drain stamina but allows you to quickly move from location to location. As opposed to the vanilla game, several weapons have alternate fire modes and many of the new scoped weapons include an actual scope view when aiming which is really cool and adds a bit of a immersion. The mod also allows you to carry light machine guns, which is not something you can normally do in the vanilla game. Call of Duty 2 ditches the necessity of acquiring health kits to restore health in favor of a regenerating health system. This mechanic, alone, makes it obvious that Call of Duty 2 is not in anyway an accurate or realistic depiction of what soldiers experience during combat. Not that the first game was realistic by any means but I think regenerating health was introduced to put more of an emphasis on the action and the game’s cinematic style. I actually don’t mind regenerating health in most games so I’m not really complaining. Call of Duty 2 includes and auto save function. However, the game doesn’t always save at the best times. For example, the game decided to save right before an enemy tank blew me away so every time I loaded the checkpoint, I would die immediately, forcing me to restart the mission. Yeah, that can be frustrating. In one of the Back2Fronts missions, I eliminated all but one of the German mortar crews and not once did it save during that time so, of course, I died and had to do it all over again.
You’re going to be blasting away tons of German enemies and at your disposal is your typical arsenal of World War II weaponry. If you’ve played any other World War II shooter ever, all of the weapons should be familiar. You’ve got the M1 Garand, Thompson submachine gun, MP40, Kar-98, Lee-Enfield, MP44, M1911, and other weapons that were used during the war. Each campaign exposes you to different weapons and others, like the German weapons, can be found throughout the environments or acquired from fallen enemies. The Back2Fronts mod includes a lot of new weapons and it’s possible you may not get a chance to use all of them on your first run through the mod. The mod adds in the FG42, MP41, ZB26, and more. It adds new grenades and even new artillery guns like the PAK43 and German C36 for example. Now while it may be obvious that you’re doing most of the legwork, the game still manages to emphasize the fact that you’re just a small part of a large conflict. You’re always going to be accompanied by fellow soldiers. And, yes, the friendly AI is still annoying. They like to get in your way and they become a real nuisance in corridors and doorways. I’ve also seen them just standing around not shooting at nearby enemies. The enemy AI is decent. They’ll run around, take cover, shoot at you, and some enemies will even carry and deploy light machine guns. Ultimately, they do the basics. However, they are very grenade happy. In fact, I think there’s more grenades flying around than bullets. It’s insane. I don’t know if it was the developer’s attempt to keep you moving, like to flush you out of cover, but the enemies are always throwing grenades, usually right at your feet. Sometimes two or three are thrown right at you which can become irritating. Grenades are literally everywhere, you’ll never run out of grenades, and both the friendly and enemy AI can pick up and throw back live grenades. For some reason, you lack this ability and that’s unfortunate because it could have been extremely useful. Call of Duty 2 adds smoke grenades into the mix and these are actually one of the more useful tools at your disposal. Smoke grenades will cover your movement, making it easy to flank enemies or get past enemy machine gunners and tanks. The Back2Fronts mod adds in new character models to the roster including German Honorguards, German Winter SS, summer Russians, and even British Paratroopers.
Now that I’ve played this again years after release and after finally playing the first game, I can honestly say that not much has changed here since the original. Sure, there’s obvious visual improvements and some tweaks to the gameplay but if you’ve played the first game, most of the experience here feels exactly the same. Run, shoot, blow something up, rinse and repeat. On your HUD is a compass with a star, sometimes lettered icons, that identify exactly where you need to go. You can also bring up a list of objectives at any time during gameplay so it’s basically impossible to get lost or not know what to do. Call of Duty 2 is a very scripted experience but unlike the first game you are given a little freedom during missions. While the first game holds your hand every step of the way, Call of Duty 2 removes the training wheels but there’s still somebody there to make sure you don’t fall. That’s the best way to describe it. Every mission is linear for the most part but many areas allow you to approach encounters and situations in slightly different ways. But don’t get too excited, the battles will still play out the same no matter how you change up your approach. It’s just that now you don’t have to tackle it the exact same way on repeated playthroughs. Straying too far off the beaten path will result in your death because instead of invisible walls are minefields, identified by small signs in the ground. During many missions, it feels like you’re navigating from one small battle arena to another. And within those arenas are numerous paths to your objective. Some missions throw in multiple objectives that can be completed in any order and these are actually a nice change of pace compared to the typical style of making a beeline from here to there. Even though you’re given more options when it comes to completing objectives, it’s still a linear experience at heart. All I’m saying is don’t go into this thinking the missions offer complete freedom as seen in a game like Medal of Honor: European Assault for example.
Cod 2 Back 2 Fronts Mod
If you’ve played other military-style shooters or World War II shooters in general, the objectives, themselves, are nothing really new. You’ll be defending areas which means fending off waves of Germans before the timer reaches zero. You’ll have to blow up German artillery and tanks, secure documents, infiltrate buildings and clear out hostiles, man anti-aircraft guns to shoot down enemy planes, and other stuff like that. There’s far less vehicle missions compared to the first game and the only vehicles you get to drive are tanks. Any other time you’re in a vehicle or form of transport, it’s usually as a passenger. Most of the time you’re engaging enemies on-foot. Now you will be engaging enemy vehicles quite frequently, usually enemy tanks. Sometimes you have blow up moving tanks which can prove to be a challenge if you don’t know how to utilize smoke grenades. Many objectives require you to capture an area or push back enemy forces. This normally involves you shooting every enemy in sight and advancing forward. However, you will receive no real help from your fellow soldiers outside of them distracting and killing a few nearby enemies. If you need to advance on an enemy position, they won’t move without you. Killing enemies is much easier if you stay with your squad but if you move too far ahead, you can easily be outnumbered and killed so it’s best to move forward little by little. You can always run really far ahead and wait for your allies to catch up in which case they usually clear out the area of enemies but considering you would be surrounded and assaulted with grenades before they can get there, that makes it a risky move. The Back2Fronts mod include objectives that follow the mold of the vanilla game. Run, shoot, defend an area, blow something up, etc. However, there are some annoyances. One of the new Soviet missions has you charging at enemies across an open battlefield with very little cover and if you don’t throw smoke grenades, you’re basically guaranteed to die. This sequence in particular can be very trial and error. There’s another mission that has you sniping enemies and I learned the hard way that if you move where you’re not supposed to, you just die immediately but there’s no real obvious warning. The St. Lamaire mission is cool in design but constantly getting shot through the foliage means it’s very hard to take cover from gunfire, making it a bit tedious to get through. This mission also requires you to clear out houses of German forces and the friendly AI refused to accompany me, forcing me to clear out each house by myself.
Call of Duty 2 showcases an obvious visual improvement over the first game. The character models and texture work looked pretty good for the time, you can see little details like scratches and grooves on weapons, I love the smoke effects, and there’s a decent amount of particle effects that help enhance the action. By today’s standards, the game clearly looks dated but I remember it looking pretty great back in when it released. The new and redesigned weapons introduced in the Back2Fronts mod look great and the reload animations that accompany the new weapons look pretty good as do the vanilla reload animations in general. I do think some of the new missions in Back2Fronts could use some more lighting or brightness adjustments because some areas are just very dark, making hard to see. You don’t get a flashlight or anything so you just have to deal with it. Some things haven’t aged gracefully like character animations which can appear stiff at times, enemy death animations are scripted, object and foliage pop-in is rampant, you can see distant models are low-poly, and some of the backgrounds can appear blurry. I also wish there were more gore effects. Now the audio work is basically on the same level as the first game which means it’s good. During combat you’ll hear plenty of explosions, gunfire, soldiers will be shouting and screaming, you may hear planes soaring overhead, and the sound effects in general do a great job at making the battles feel intense. Even when there’s nothing to shoot, which isn’t often, you’ll hear gunfire and explosions in the distance. My only complaint is that the tank machine gun fire sounds weak. I had the same complaint with the first game. Back2Fronts includes all kinds of new sound effects. Gunfire now sounds realistic, more powerful, and it’s satisfying to hear the echo of your shots. There’s even new enemy death sound effects like new choking and gargling sounds. As for the music, I’ll be honest, I don’t really notice it. The sounds of the gameplay easily drown out most of the music and none of the tunes I can think of really stand out to me. I know the Back2Fronts mod includes new menu music. I don’t know the name of this song but it sounds creepy as fuck and it manages to create a really grim atmosphere. It’s quite memorable. I love it. It’s just a shame you don’t hear it more often like during gameplay. When talking about the performance, the vanilla game ran smooth. Back2Fronts ran fine for the most part but during a couple of missions, the frame rate randomly took a shit. I also experienced a few bugs during my time with the mod. I did get stuck in an object and couldn’t move. One mission requires you to clear out a house and when I did that the objective wouldn’t complete. Eventually, a random German spawned inside the house and I was finally able to proceed after I killed him. Also when playing one of the standard missions with the mod, I was required to enter an armored car but the car wouldn’t move to our next objective and I couldn’t get out. Finally, in one of the American missions, I couldn’t plant explosives to blow up the enemy support vehicle.
I had fun with Call of Duty 2 but now that I’ve played it again, I can honestly say that my love for this entry compared to the rest is purely due to nostalgia. Going into this, I thought there was more of a reason I enjoyed this entry the most. But, no. It’s just nostalgia. I admit it because it’s true. When I first played this years ago, I had never played the original game but now that I have, I can’t really say what makes this leaps and bounds better than the first. It looks better and includes some tweaks and minor additions but there’s really nothing about Call of Duty 2 that makes it significantly different than its predecessor, at least when talking about the single player. The core gameplay is basically unchanged. It’s not a bad game or anything and considering how popular this entry is, I’m actually surprised it never received any expansions. I’m not considering Call of Duty 2: Big Red One as an expansion. I’m talking about a real expansion pack like Call of Duty’s United Offensive expansion. This was my first time modding the game and I think the Back2Fronts mod is an excellent piece of work that deserves recognition. It makes some significant changes that can really enhance the experience and get you immersed in the combat. The new missions are a great extension of the game that also fit in with the mold of the existing ones. If you enjoy the Call of Duty 2 gameplay, Back2Fronts is just more of the same with some added bonuses. Although, it does have some technical issues and bugs that can stop progress, forcing you to either load previously saved games, restart missions, or cheat. Hopefully these will be ironed out in future releases if it’s even still being developed.
Ultimately, I would recommend Call of Duty 2 to fans of the series and first-person shooters. Even though I realized that my love for the game is due to nostalgia, it does include some new features that I consider to be improvements over the first game so based on that, alone, I would say this is the better entry, overall. However, if you’ve never played the original or this before, I can’t really say there’s a lot here that makes it drastically different. It’s a bit faster paced, there’s a little more freedom when it comes to missions, and there’s plenty of action. I never did try the multiplayer in this game but maybe the developers changed it up significantly compared to that of the original, I don’t know. Call of Duty 2 is a solid game and I would put it up there on my list of excellent World War II shooters. It’s a very scripted experience with cinematic influences and I can’t say there’s a lot of replay value when it comes to the single player but at least it’s fun from beginning to end.
