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

So what's the game like? Well...it's awesome. I mean, let's be realistic, if your favourite games are Tetris and Pikmin, this might not be for you. But if you are into action combat games, this is the pick of the bunch. We played a couple of levels of the Xbox 360 version and although it was clearly in an early alpha stage, the gameplay was immediately immersive.

Here at SPOnG we've been unequivocal about the benefits of HD gaming - greater visual clarity makes many game genres more involving. Driving has been our clear HD favourite, but combat action is another genre that benefits greatly from one being better able to see what's happening on screen. Earlier versions of Call of Duty could be a little muddy, mainly because of all that mud - war is hell, after all. But also because of the relatively low resolutions of the current gen consoles, and the low contrast palettes and camouflage. Call of Duty on 360 and PS3 fixes that for good. You now have a very clear view of what's going on around you, and there's so much going on that it's a good thing too.

As soon as you begin playing CoD3, you are under fire. There are bullets caroming off of the cover you cower behind. Your squadmates are teeming around you and there are explosions seemingly everywhere. All you can do is keep your head down and start shooting. The compass at bottom right of the screen shows you what you should be shooting at, and where your allies are located, as well as indicating where your mission objective is. Sometimes indicating an option as the game progress involves multiple paths to some objectives, enabling users to play to their strengths - sniping and flanking, or all-out, head-on attack. Keep moving in the direction indicated, and keep taking out the bad guys while collecting ammo and weapons to use as you progress.

But cowering and sniping is not an assured path to success in CoD3, because the game's deformable objects mean that your cover can be destroyed by enemy fire, leaving you exposed if you linger too long.

It's a shame that same deformability doesn't extend into the multiplayer game where vehicles are involved. The multiplayer game is incredible, enabling up to 24 players to take part simultaneously in team-based combat over the Internet, or split screen local multiplayer. One excellent aspect of multiplayer is the inclusion of vehicles ranging from motorcycle and side-car up to tanks, all of which can be commandeered, and many of which are multi-occupancy, so you can take your squadmates for a ride too. But, at least in the level we played, the deformability that makes the single player game so much fun was removed, at least to an extent. Our tank bounced off wooden buildings, and scaled over dry stone walls. Smashing the former to matchsticks and pulverising the latter to sand would have been far preferable.

The game could also benefit from a third-party view or movie mode so that you can see what you are up to when you're in a vehicle - because it was quite difficult to make out where you were driving in the tank - although that is a reasonable approximation of real life, where World War II tanks improved your bulletproof-ness, but were reputedly very poor for visibility.

One major aspect of Call of Duty 3 is Battle Actions - a new gameplay mechanic that extends the game far beyond merely shooting things and blowing things up. Using Battle Actions, you will be required to row your boat across rivers, disarm traps and improvise explosive devices. It wasn't apparent in the levels we played - but we're looking forward to this aspect of the finished game.

When CoD hits the shelves later this year, it's going to take battle action games to a new level, and introduce previously unseen levels of multi-player action. And it could achieve similar success on the PS3 as its predecessor did on 360.

But don't take our word for it - take a look at these videos.

The first is the full fat high resolution masterpiece: Call of Duty HD (Quicktime - 125 MB)

For those of you with more scant bandwidth, here's a low res version - you won't see the HD gorgeousness of CoD3, but you'll see how much action the game throws at you: Call of Duty ED (8 MB MP4)

For those of you with middling bandwidth - a middling size version combining prettiness with a smaller file size - still lots of explosions though!: Call of Duty MD (35 MB)

If you don't have a decent media player, get VideoLan Client here or www.apple.com/quicktime">QuickTime here.