Previews// Call of Duty 3 (360/PS3/Wii/PS2/Xbox)

At the launch of the Xbox 360, Activision's Call of Duty 2 achieved a record-breaking and remarkable 70% attach rate. Let's think about that for a second. Over two thirds of all people who bought an Xbox 360 during its launch window bought a copy of Call of Duty 2. Incredible - though maybe less so if you've played it, because it's a text-book example of a military action game.

With the launch of PlayStation 3 impending, Activision is understandably keen to repeat the feat, plus deliver another essential slice of Xbox 360 gaming at the same time. So Treyarch's developers have been slaving away at the keyboard and the 3D scanner (more of which later) creating an all new Call of Duty game. And last week, Activision took SPOnG to Paris to be amongst the first people in Europe to play it, and to speak to the development and PR team.

The CoD series was created by Infinity Ward, a development studio comprising 22 of the team who worked on Electronic Arts' genre-defining battle action game Medal of Honor. Infinity Ward was subsequently acquired by Activision, and the company has developed each of the PC versions of Call of Duty, but other developers have handled console conversions and versions. Activision Studio Treyarch has a sterling reputation, with Spider-man and Kelly Slater's Pro Surfing and Xbox and Dreamcast version of Tony Hawk's amongst its previous titles. Treyarch is working on Call of Duty 3 for PS2, PS3, Xbox, 360 and the Wii. So perhaps the first question is, why no PC version?

Marcus Iremonger, Executive Producer of CoD3 told us, "Because we're doing the PS3 and the Wii - two new platforms. It was important that we hit those, and to be honest, the concentration has to be on getting the best out of them. We don't want to be delivering anything other than the very best we can do."

Having only played CoD previously on PS2 and Xbox, we wondered if the 360 version will be similar to the previous PC versions? "You'll be amazed at just how far the 360 has come along. There are things in the next gen version of the game that are certainly beyond what we did with CoD2 even on the PC. Some things that I'm amazed at, amazed that the machines are able to do it."

CoD is the third game in a series that has had many versions, so what takes the game forward? "The volume of everything, the explosions, the scale of the explosions - the number of explosions. The amount of audio that we can include now is way beyond what we've done before. The weather effects. We've had weather effects before - but they just go now to a much higher level of detail."

"The number of characters on screen is much higher now. In the past, we've done a very good job of recreating large-scale battles using cunning techniques. But now we're able to just do it, rather than trying to trick the eye."

"As we spend more time with the machines, and as more tools come online - third party tools that allow us to do things that we weren't able to do before. Things like the dynamic sound changing, so when you go into a building, you can change the audio dynamically so that it's going to resonate, to echo slightly. Those kind of things we just couldn't do before."

One of the things Treyarch is doing that it couldn't do previously is 3D laser scanning, but it's recently invested in "...a very very expensive piece of kit..." Marcus tells us, "We've used it quite a lot to try and make sure that everything is realistic as possible. Every uniform you see in the game has been put onto a mannequin and scanned. Weapons too..."

"But the focus has really been on the uniforms. That gives us the ability to put more detail than you maybe can as an artist. So, where you're used to seeing all this quite flat clothing, now we're able to put all these creases in. And details, like where you can have the lapel on the shirt slightly folded under the jacket or slightly over the jacket. The variation we can do now is stunning... you look at the screenshots and you notice, that guy's got a single pack on his back, and that guy's got a double pack, and his water canteen is on the other side. This guy's got grenades, and this guy doesn't. One guy will have a dent in his helmet, and this other guy doesn't have a helmet at all. And you'll see that variation on the enemies and you'll see it on your squad.