Call of Duty: World at War

This game is a true masterpiece and has passed the test of time. This game was my first experience to the Call of Duty franchise when my uncle rented this game when I was 8 or 9 years old. The campaign the zombies and the multiplayer all have this eerie vibe to them and a more greyed out look compared to other games. The game just gives you a rough and scary vibe like somewhere you don't want to be. They captured WW2 very well through the campaign. There are many times where you must do things you don't want to do and if you don't do them things can end up worse than if you had done them. I don't want to write any spoilers here as the campaign is excellent and worth a play through. Even for a game from 2008 there are limbs flying off bodies and unlike a traditional Call of Duty game where you mostly fight alone or with 1-2 people as a squad, World at War puts you on a battlefield with tons of others. The campaign is the best campaign for me out of any Call of Duty game followed by the Modern Warfare series. 10/10 Campaign. Zombies was originally introduced in this Call of Duty for the first time ever and became the popular game mode of the franchise of today. The maps are all very small due to the limited hardware at the time but the developers really went out of their way to make them unique. Nacht der Untoten this is the first ever zombies map it's very tight and compact, there are no perks just a few wall buys and the iconic mystery box. Your stuck all alone in a bunker with hordes of zombies flanking you from all sides with nowhere to run and it captures that perfectly. Playing this map as a kid for the first time really scared me and looking back on it as an adult I really think that the devs did a wonderful job creating this mode and map to give that vibe. You look at the childish current zombies of today and it's not scary at all, it's more like an arcade. The second map Verrückt is in my opinion the best zombies map in the game and in terms of location and vibe one of the best in the series. Not in terms of enjoyability or playability. This is another tight map limited by hardware but the devs go out of their way to make it work. This is a real building from WW2 called Wittenau Sanatorium in Berlin and is something every fan of this game should try to visit. This real life asylum has a dark history where they would perform lethal experiments on kids that were deemed "unworthy of life" or in modern terms handicapped. The devs actually built in various sounds into each room in this map you can hear, such as faint screams of babies and children, there is blood used as writing on the walls of rooms in the asylum and even a medical room where some "experiments" were performed. There are even children's toys scattered on the floor. This map has to be the best or at least a top 3 for me if I had to rank them for overall design. Games today are so woke and will never implement something like this ever again and the implementation here was perfect. Seriously kudos to all the devs who worked on this. The other 2 maps are mediocre in comparison with Shi No Numa being better than Der Rise in my opinion as it keeps in line more with the games aesthetic. This mode really set the bar high for Black Ops 1 to continue off of. There are even custom zombies maps in this game you can download and add from the internet and play with your friends on even. This game was the birth of the custom zombies mode that people wanted back so badly in Black Ops 3. Multiplayer is still alive and well in 2026. The stock game features a server browser with a very select few servers. The game is also supported on a 3rd party client called Plutonium which has a few more servers and some other quality of life improvements. I have a guide on my profile if your interested in tracking steam hours through Plutonium as well if your interested. The multiplayer is great the game runs on very low end PCs and there is always an active game going even if it's just 1 or 2 servers with players. We could definitely use some more players if your interested in trying an older Call of Duty. There are no sliding or crazy attachments here just 1 attachment per gun 3 perks and your grenades similar to the pre Black Ops II era. It's still one of my favorite Call of Duty games and I hope private servers stay up and keep this game alive!