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here’s a really positive preview of the PC version of CoD:WaW from the folks down under at IGN Australia. From what I can tell, their impressions of the Berlin level they played are from one of the levels I worked on, “Eviction.” here are a couple excerpts that talk specifically about that level:

Smoke effects are a great example the small but notable steps forward Treyarch is taking. Smoke has a gameplay affecting presence in a shocking way. I had one of those are ‘wow’ moments when I turned a corner in the Berlin mission, Eviction, as a burning building began to fill with smoke. The hallway I was in had volumetric smoke pumping in from the rafters and, just like in real life, standing upright mean that my character and his squad of Red Star Ruskies couldn’t see and couldn’t breathe. In order to pass through the thick smoke, you have to crouch or wriggle forward prone-style just like in real life. That’s damned clever stuff.

and here, they describe their ordeal in “the grim streets of Berlin,” which is a fun turn of phrase, right?

Still in the grim streets of Berlin, you lead your battalion of disgruntled Russian troops on a path of destruction down a central laneway. After escorting a tank through heavy oncoming fire and taking out Nazis along the way, you come across a handful of German troops waving white flags and begging for their lives. Suddenly the game breaks out of combat and an exchange between you, your Ruskie squad and the potential prisoners of war. Your men want them dead, but they want you to make the call. Will you shoot them? Or let them live and risk being slowed down?

I made the call to let them live (Hey – I’m a nice guy, what can I say?). Suddenly, one of my troops opens fire with a flamethrower and toasts the lot of them. I was genuinely taken aback; my moral stand came to no good in the end, and indeed it actually prolonged their suffering when I could’ve ended things very quickly. It was an interesting and decidedly dark conundrum that I really wasn’t expecting.

I think that my peers will understand this feeling: holy shit, they liked it! Warm fuzzies and loving my job +1.

Filed by sean at 11:44 am under games