I haven't played the PS360 version, but the PC version. And I must say I wasn't very impressed. The game tries very hard to be Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (MW), but completely fails to do any of the things that made that a good game. Let me explain what I mean, after I point out that I only play singleplayer. Never multiplayer. I haven't played multiplayer since Counterstrike: Source.
World at War (WaW) start off with you being held captive by some japanese soldiers, in a small hut somewhere in the pacific. The scene lasts for about a minute or less, and in this time you see another soldier being beaten, saying "don't tell tell them anything" and then having his throat cut by the japanese guards. You are then predictibly saved from the same faith a couple of seconds later, handed a gun and asked to kick some ass.
This scene only reminds me of the opening of MW, where you take the view of a warlord on his way to execution. Something that actually made an impact on me. In comparison, the opening of WaW is pretty lame, and doesn't accomplish either making me feel for the protagonist or making me hate the japanese. After this first mission you get extraced by boat and rewarded by seeing a couple of huts getting blown up. Again, this is almost a direct reference to the nuclear explosion in MW, only with a sense of emotional detatchment and not at all as beautiful or impressive.
The game goes on trying to emulate its predecessor, but all the time missing the reasons that made the scenes there good. The detatched black and white on-rail shooter from MW becomes a bland experience in an airplane over sea. The exciting snipermission with the awesome finale becomes a 5 minute sniper mission and 20 minute chase with a much less than satisfying end and so on. Treyarch also throws in original failiures, like a tank-mission with a tank that controls like a toy-car and way too many quick-time events.
But all is not bad in this shooter. There are some geniunly awesome moments, such as walking through a building with Mozarts requiem's Dies Irae coming through a radio somewhere, and gunning down germans that abandon their posts. Also, there are some killing of prisoners that really makes you feel like a grim soldier avenging your friends.
Mostly, this game suffers from the same flaws as all the Call of Duty games. The pace is too high, with very few moments on maps that allow you to take a deep breath before going on. The shooting also degenerates to a point and click game after a while. Right-click, point, left-click. Right-click, point, left-click. In absurdum. The need to advance to stop the enemy from respawning is also still in place, and leaves you feeling guided. It's still extremely linear, which does not necessarily have to be a bad thing.
The graphics... well. As I said, I played this on PC, so I might not have gotten the best of it. But I still feel that MW beats WaW in esthetics, if not detail. Modern Warfare looked cool and awesome while World at War is a lot more boring.
In the end, I would give Call of Duty: World at War a 4 out of 10.
(compare to Modern Warfare: 6 out of 10)
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