One quick thing!: There are sten guns and crosshairs in the VANILLA version of the game, which I was NOT playing. I was playing a gore mod, and I've had it for so long that I forgot that sten guns and sights ever even existed in the game to begin with. I don't think the gore mod changed anything except for a few small things related to weapons, so all the rest of the input in this video should still be accurate, if a bit subjective. Thanks to all the civilized commenters who pointed that out. 👌
Have you heard of "Call Of Duty 2 : Finest Hour"?,unless that was what you meant by the follow up game. Because it did have some representation for the British campaign,one Sikh soldier in a turban,in exchange for the British campaign to have less missions then both the prior Russian and following US campaigns.
Fun fact: In the Soviet training mission, right after you leave the room with the German prisoner in it, you can hear a very distinct shot. If you then go back in the room, you can see that Letlev has shot the prisoner.
Honestly the dynamic callout system was one of my favorite things about the game. Especially with the fact that the soldiers shout out each others names. It makes the soldiers I'm fighting with in the game feel much more real, hearing them shout something like "O'Brian, I'm reloading, cover me!" or "Matese, german soldiers by the lower wall, watch yourself!"
its fun when you hear the germans do it too, ive learned a bit of words thanks to the game and find it funny when i hear both sides say basically the same thing
MY LIFE WILL BE COMPLETE WHEN THEY REMASTER THIS ONE DAY. I have been dreaming of this for YEARS. It’s my favorite COD. It’s my very first COD I’ve ever played.
If we were ever gonna get remasters of the original 3 Call of Duty's, this year would have probably been the year it would happen for the 20th anniversary, starting with CoD 1. Sadly, I don't think Activision sees any money or market in remastering the pre-CoD 4 games. It sucks because CoD 2 is my favorite game in the series.
It's incredible to me that one of the best singleplayer mission structures ever was in a game as early COD 2 and almost never seens again, the Sniper defense mission in Stalingrad where any enemies that you can't kill from afar actually makes it into the house and you need to engage in close-quarters combat instead. Absolutely amazing game.
If you want something to really blow your mind.. Call of Duty 1 and 2 were released only 2 years apart but are VASTLY different in terms of visuals, sound design, 3D models, textures, etc. It's truly insane to look at. It shows how fast gaming tech advanced in the early 2000s. Call of Duty 2, 4 and WaW are the best CoD games and nothing after that has hit the spot.
exactly! cod blew my mind but when cod 2 came out i thought this was the moment videogames reached the absolute peak. it was like all the war movies meshed together and you are thrown right into the middle. In 2003 when cod1 came out, the quake3 engine was already at its final day.
@@snakeplissken2148 I still remember on CoD2, the mission where all the Germans are upstairs so you plate explosive charges on all the load bearing walls then blow it up once you’re outside. I just remember the building crumbling and the smoke/dust filling the air.. It felt so real lol
It's only mind blowing when one doesn't whatsoever realize how rapid progress of video games making was in early 2000s. In 2004 you had GTA San Andreas which looked dated next year. In 2007 meanwhile Crysis came out, and looks amazing to this day.
@@ReichLife Yeah i Was there. But Cod was on another Level Not because of the graphics, but the intense effects and feeling. No other game had this,except medal of honor maybe in the Mission you dropped on normandy.
U do for at least part of the campaign. They brought on army rangers for the battles in the American campaign and Brits for the british. Ur reliving their actual memories of those fights.
I first played the game when I was 9. I vividly remember the opening scene for D-Day and the name Taylor. Later that year around Halloween my mom got me a beautiful blonde German Shepard. I named him Taylor for reasons that should be obvious. He died last year at 13 years old. I miss you my boy.
@@vlauthentiq636to defending hill 400 on veteran when they fucking bum rush you from all angles and grenade your ass like they’re the SS defending the goddamn reichtag
The reason why you never had a cross hair for the tank portion, was due to the fact you weren't playing the vanilla version. You had some sort of realistic mod in place. Extra gore/blood splatter, more dynamic rifle manipulation, and some other improvements
Yeah this guy isn't accurate in describing the gameplay, such as saying that the Sten gun isn't in the game when its actually in a few missions. This mean this guy either played a modded version of the game without realizing it, or he just watched someone else's entire game playlist that is modded and haven't played the vanilla game
There is a sort of "prequel" mod in cod 2 called the Spanish civil war mod. Apparently actual veterans were consulted in the making of it. Definitely recommend.
I was on FileFront when it was made, most mods for CoD2 that were total conversions were hugely helped by MCh2207Cz, who has his Back2Fronts mod which adds incredible realism to the game.
Ehhh. Depends. CoD II imo is the better game purely in terms of gameplay imo. But in terms of a more dark and realistic setting and theme, WaW is better. Overall tho, I do kinda prefer CoD II over WaW
@@croatbruhmoment2910 I think gritty is more correct, as there is a vast ocean of mods for WAW to fix all of its historic inaccuracies. I played COD 1, 2 , and 3 before ever touching WAW though which adds a bias
I played Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360 and I was so shocked at how gripping and fun it was that I 100%'d it. I remember struggling with one particular mission in insane difficulty, trying to clear out a church filled with Germans. I'm probably going to grab it on Steam at some point and relive it. Truly a wild experience.
I played it twice back in 2006. First pretty much standard run and the second time with a realistic sounds mod that made the game feel like you were inside the "Saving Private Ryan" film.
I adore the pre-COD4 games and how they played out more like a documentary, or a flashback from a veteran telling his tales. I even remember playing COD 3 and watching the bonus features you unlock, which were interviews with different veterans from the war. Really felt like a tribute to the people of that time, and some of the later ones like World at War and Black Ops still felt historical, in a way, like using real events and war footage. Even COD 4 had a lot of that same classic tone to it, even if that was a more story-driven game before MW2 cranked it up.
They used to be more grounded in reality. Like you said, a documentary or flashback. Then they turned them into something trying to mimic a summer blockbuster action movie instead of a historical event.
Honestly the original Modern Warfare wasnt amazing, but it was a fun experience. World at War wasn't too bad either. However, Modern Warfare 2 was meh, but people loved it, and that just enabled the devs to make more and more forgettable games, because everyone ate them up without really complaining. And how could they? For many, Modern Warfare 2 was their first videogame. It's one of the titular videogames that made videogames mainstream outside of Nintendo. People didn't know better.
@@Drbeckerproductions The first Modern Warfare is when they started being less grounded in reality. Then Modern Warfare 2 went full on over the top action movie. World at War was really good IMO, but that was the last one I enjoyed.
@@DrbeckerproductionsI think your memory of that time is a bit off. COD4 rapidly became huge. People were calling it a Halo killer, which the series did end up being. By that point, Halo had already taken gaming, particularly console gaming, mainstream. Even COD2 was widely appreciated too bc it was a 360 launch title iirc. gotta say, it’s wild watching a video talking about COD2 like it’s a hidden relic of history. To me, it still feels relatively recent. I’m just getting old lmao
This game had a vibe that your school required you to play this game all the way through as a homework assignment, for some reason. I always did love the educational aspect of this, I was hugely into WWII as a child, and even I never knew the battles of Stalingrad, or the North Africa campaign of the British Royal Army.
same here its what got me into ww2 history in elementary of course the teachers didn't like that i knew this stuff at an early age but i was pretty smart everyone has told me for years autistic people are smarter than what most think when i did get into military history in high school i did a big project on the Battle Of The Bulge and the teacher was very impressed
When the series came out in the early 2000s it took a lot of influence from the miniseries Band Of Brothers and even at one point had actors do the voice work in COD 2 specifically it's spin off Big Red One
@@h1tzzYT the ww2 genre was in a decline by the time WaW released while it did do good everyone was getting tired of WW2 i don't think i touched a ww2 game well into 2017 with cod ww2
@@Viper-jr4sp well it might be true, im looking more as in retrospective rather than what was popular at the time. cod WaW is the last cod which tried to be authentic, not to mention it had actually decent story. There were quite a few decent cod's released afterwards but never reached the same or higher level imo. Cod infinite warfare is actually super underrated and it was released at a wrong time, i remember how everyone hated on it because of its theme, but it was the last cod which had actually good campaign.
Never ever forgot this gem. Still feel the same when I play it today. It got me so interested into the dark history of ww2 and that it was actually a real horrible event.
19:20 I don't know what mods you were using while recording, but in the vanilla version the British do use Stens in the European portion of their campaign. Very nice detail how they use the Thompson (incorrect one as they used the M1928 but still) in 1942 and Sten in 1944
I loved how they incorporated historical accuracy into the games difficulty. For example the Germans don't get the stg44 up until the later parts of the game. Which makes sense since the stg didn't exist before 1944 and it also makes the late game more difficult since enemies using it can shred you in 2 seconds.
Yeah I noticed that. I also noticed he had a Webley revolver at the start of the British night raid mission. But this level always starts with Thompson/Enfield for me.
Usually there are crosshairs on the mounted weapons & tanks. Whatever mod you have installed which increases the gore (the base game doesn't have any dismemberment) seems to have changed a few things elsewhere which have contributed to your issues. The guns also don't usually lag as much behind your aim as they do in your version, some of the sounds are changed (like the assault on pointe du hoc scene where you're dismounting the boat), and in the british missions there are usually Sten guns, not sure what mod you have installed which is changing that. Still enjoyed the video, I tend to agree with most of your thoughts and also wish there were more missions. I think the main reason cod2 felt so good to shoot targets in was because all the rifles are what became sniper rifles in later games, just without the scope. The high damage means you have a very powerful weapon at most times, rather than having an assault rifle whose damage is similar to a submachine gun.
Beating this game on max difficulty has to be one of the toughest fps challenges I’ve done. Hill 400 was a brutal slog and helped sell just how insane a task it was irl. But it’s also one of the most fun fps challenges I’ve ever done, really enjoyed it!
when my graphics card overheated on my old pc 5 years ago and couldnt play anything else on my integrated card, i would play the whole campaign with pistols only on veteran. beautiful experience
Call of Duty 2 always held a special place in my heart solely for the Pointe du Hoc landing mission : the landing took place only a few kilometers aways from a village where my grandparents used to live and where they are buried today. During my childhood, every summer, I would spend a month here and would often visit the Pointe du Hoc site. To this day, you can still see the gaping holes left by the intense shelling of the area and I'm amazed how accurate the place look in-game compared to its real-life counterpart. My parents also befriended a US veteran (thanks to a veterans organization I believe) from the 2nd Rangers Batallion who landed there and climbed the cliffs. My father told me once that this veteran came back to France once for a ceremony in Normandy. My grandfather took him and my father on his fishing boat so they could see the cliffs from the sea. That veteran was an old-school rugged Texan who spend his entire life in the military, but according to my father, he cried a lot when he saw the cliffs from the sea. So even though I'm having fun playing CoD 2 from time to time, I often think about guys like this veteran, or unlike him, I think about those who weren't lucky to survive this war, and I feel grateful for never having to live through such an atrocity and I can't thank them enough for their sacrifice. Sorry for the long comment, I got a bit carried away ^^' EDIT : I'd like to add a funny story about that veteran. We have a picture of him in shaking hands with Ronald Reagan in 1984 for the 40th anniversary of D-Day, the day Reagan made his speech that you can hear at 25:50. Being an ardent republican, that veteran gladly shook his hand. However, a decade later, for the 50th anniversary, it was Bill Clinton's turn, who was then US president and a democrat, to make a speech and meet the veteran. In order to avoid shaking hands with Clinton, the veteran pretended to have his right arm in a cast.
Salute dude, Being a CNJ fan Leonard Bud Lomell who was a railroad employee fought at Pointe Du Hoc and Hurtgen Forest at Hill 400 with the 2nd Rangers. His experience was also the basis for this game's campaign
About 5:25 ... that did happen, yea... but not in Stalingrad, it was during the the first moments of barbarossa, during a big pincer movement in Ukraine, many soviet units were encircled, they tried to break out of the pocket, but since it was the start of the concflict, not everyone was well equipped, and in one of these attacks, not everyone was armed with rilfes, some only had pistols or straight up knifes, It happened in Odessa if I'm not mistaken And about executing retreating soldiers, it also happened, not in Stalingrad, but still in Ukraine in 1941, I dont remember who exactly, but a pesky officer was desperate for a victory against the advancing german army, i think it was near the border between Ukraine and russian, he sent a unit to attack, they retread, he was super mad at it and shoot them with his revolver, but he was imprisioned and executed for it. The USSR did have many barrier troops and penal battalions though But those are isolated cases, results of bad leadership, logistics and desperation, the USSR was absolutely awnful and horrible, but these specific things were not the rule
Yeah it's always simplified into either it happened all the time or not at all. The Soviets used prisoners in combat who would be forgiven for their crimes and the reputations of their families restored after a certain duration of combat or their death. They were sent to the worst places doing the worst jobs including mine clearing and suicide attacks. The men in charge of them and serving as barrier troops were NKVD agents. tl;dr it was "un-communist" prisoners that were motivated to die and communist fanatics motivated to kill them for disobeying orders.
"And about executing retreating soldiers, it also happened - in Ukraine in 1941" and 2022 & 2023, bit funny that modern Russia is doing soviet stereotype tactics for reals right now.
Yeah I don't know why he acted like that didn't happen. It wasn't 1 to 1 how it was in the game but the Russians threw bodies at the Germans and you can easily see that in the death toll.
The tank mission is actually good in cod2... Something was really messed up with your settings since you had no crosshair and the guns were flaling all over. Idk which version you played but the steam version does not have that amount of gun movement when you pan the camera and you do have a crosshair on the tank mission. You also have a crosshair on the binoculars, which you can use to aim at tanks long distance. Apart from that, great video, cod 2 is severely underappreciated!
Yeah he’s definitely got some settings stuff going on. The gore is more extreme than any version I’ve played since 2005, never saw chunks and heads explode. The aiming sway is way off too.
Yeah, something definitely seemed off with the guns at first and then when he talk about the tank mission that doubled my confusion. He's obviously using some pc version but as the trevor mentioned with the updated gore/graphics and what seems to be key binding abilities (he talks about choosing to put grenade throw on "g" although I only played on console so I don't know if this is normal) he definitely played some modded version.
@@BP-328 so keybinding is almost always a thing on pc games, but if I remember he made a big deal about binding grenades to the “g” key. Which is standard just about everywhere, it’s not noteworthy. But I always had both grenades bound to additional buttons on the side of the mouse I used.
@@trevorcoyle517 I personally like to bind grenades to the middle mouse button, smoke grenades to the front side button, and melee to the rear side button.
The golden age for the series was COD 4 to Black Ops 2 but the first 3 games that came back in the early to mid 2000s were also pretty damn good. After all Call Of Duty's roots were in World War 2 where you could play as multiple countries and set the stage for the later games in the series
Defending that bloody hill in the American campaign towards the end was a nightmare on Veteran. Towards the end of it, I had like two invincible AI teammates left and German tanks were just parked near the bunker. Somehow managed to pull it off, but I spent a lot of time prone and popping up only to shoot a panzerschreck at the nearest tank.
Yeah at the start of the mission all allies are invincible but after the first artillery strike all but atleast a few of them can die, including private braeburn, which I consider to be the canon choice because he isn’t in Crossing the Rhine
i sat down and played cod 2 last year and it was one of the first games I've sat and just played from start to finish since i was about 18. its not as flashy as new games but dam does it feel amazing to play its just fun and never stops being fun. even the bits that arnt as good you just keep playing because you know it will be worth it just to see what else this game has in store.
its refreshing for me to see this game shines again in Modern CoD Fanbase. And it surprise me that many folks here actually does the first ever game played with this masterpiece.
This game will always bring back memories for me and just pulled it out again after watching this. Had just gotten my first job working in a small supermarket, saved up my first month to buy a 360 in a package deal with this game only, couldn't afford the memory card so played the Russian campaign over and over the first week 😂 My friend brought his 32 inch absolute tank of a TV up to my box room and we somehow squeezed it in, split screen 4 player on Caen defending one of the houses in a game we completely made up 😂 These were the days 🙂
i taught my grandpa how to play this game and we played it togeather every weekend, he was not a ww2 vet he was a kid during the war but loved the game
I’ve bought COD 2 4 times over the years. Original 6 disc box for PC, Steam, 360, and then again for my Series X. Always go back to it when I want a pure WWII FPS. I vividly remember that demo, played it constantly at Best Buy when I was a kid.
Hill 400 to this day is one of my favorite missions, working your ass to get to the top and then having to defend it, looks crazy when you set dead bodies on insane.
Call of Duty 2 was by far my favorite CoD, especially once you got to the US missions. You really feel the inspiration from band of brother in the banter between the NPC soldiers, like the "Silo" mission where the exchange about the mg crew leaving behind the ammo can makes it feel so much better.
There is something wrong with your game, The tank mission should include crosshairs, i also noticed the reticle was missing while you were using turrets. Anyways great video man, i grew up with this game and love it dearly, also to add to the pointe du hoc mission, i went there a few years back, and the game's representation of fortifications and their locations are all incredibly accurate, they really did their homework on that level
I noticed he doesn't have crosshairs in the rest of the gameplay footage. I think he turned crosshairs off and didn't realize that it would disable tank crosshairs as well.
CoDs 1, 2 and 4 were huge parts of my childhood. Masterfully crafted games and I'm glad you're giving the oldies credit. On PC 2 had so many cool modded servers and 4 had awesome modded modes like prop hunt, deathrun and paintball
This game was my first multiplayer game I've ever played. I just remember playing almost 24/7 in those internet caffes with strangers and friends, oh the memories.
I booted up the CoD2 like 2 weeks ago and I got goose bumps playing soviet Demolition chapter. I was so glad to return to such smooth gunplay and amazing atmospehere.
The victory theme when you finish the long series of battles at Pointe du Hoc is so goddamn fulfilling, it really gave the feeling of a hard battle for days and the speech at the end is the icing on the cake.
I’ve played those missions I don’t know how many times and it’s always such a rush of emotion when the music kicks in. The missions really do make you feel like, in a small way, that you just spent days fighting like hell just to stay alive.
The amount of time I spent only on Multiplayer and having fun, meeting new people, playing on weird servers is just whole other type of experience we had back in the day when internet was not really available especially in my country. Miss those old Xfire days 😮💨
The D day section in Cod 2 is still one of my favorite missions in any game purely from the sound design perspective. Hearing shells wizzing around and impacting combined with gunfire and soldiers yelling makes for peak immersion. Much better then cod WW2. Edit: Cod fans who play HLL and don’t try to actually learn the game are irritating as shit
This popped up when I was reliving my old teenage nostalgia, my first self purchased console was the 360 and I played Call of Duty 2 so many times. The campaign seemed perfect and as Scotsman I thoroughly enjoyed seeing North Africa as that is where my Grandfaither fought as part of the 8th Army. You were spot on with the observation that WW2 British forces are always overwhelmingly portrayed as English with a few of us token Commonwealth nations thrown in, it’s even worse for the former colonies who receive basically zero representation in WW2 media here in the UK. Nice to hear the gameplay holds up, great video which made me subscribe, keep it up!
I always give big props to old games that aren’t a hassle to try and learn to play. Cod 2 was insanely intuitive for its time and holds up today in terms of control scheme, gun play etc
I remember being obsessed with COD2 on PC. The online multi-player was amazing. So many different mods, I remember COD2 being rhe first online game to introduce me to the zombies mod. Game starts with a few survivors and a group of "zombies" (German soldiers with knives and bloody cloths lol.) Also remember low gravity servers and full auto bolt action/unlimited ammo servers. So many fond memories back aro6nd 2006-2007 can't remember exactly.
YES I played the demo of this game too. I must have played through it almost a dozen times before realizing that there was a larger game that I could nag my parents to buy.
@19:22 I have the steam version of COD:2. And to my recollection, I recall during the European campaign for the British there being SOME Sten Guns even if the player might not start the level with one, I'm fairly sure it's possible to pick one up if another allied NPC equipped with a sten drops it. I usually would go for the Bren instead though.
I used to have CoD 1-3 on the ps2 and loved playing them over and over. One thing I liked about older CoD games is that they’d have information on all the guns and vehicles you’d encounter in the game like a documentary slide
The callouts in this game were definitely carried over to the OG MW trilogy. In those games, you can hear the operators giving callouts over the radio like "Ghost, tango on the second floor at 12 o'clock" "Copy, I'm on him!" or "Sandman, targets by the loading dock, 3 o'clock!" "Negative, I don't have a shot!" It's something that has definitely gotten lost in CoD but it didn't die with CoD2.
One of the first shooters I ever played was COD 2, an all time favorite of mine. Also thank you so much for bringing up the Soviet campaign inaccuracies, you are the first person outside of the online historical community I've seen mention anything of the sort!
I played this campaign over and over at least 10 times and i always want to come back for more. Really with we could have camaigns like this, where it introduced multipule storylines about you being a soldier. No super secret stuff, No epic heroes, just war. Pure war.
I definitely remember using sten guns in the caen levels in cod2, I think you're playing with a mod so it might be that and also this is a very good video
@@elmosanchezwhat mod is it that you use btw? Reminds me of that Merciless gore mod I dont remember back2fronts having gore, nor Merciless having weapon inertia. So I'm kinda curious I'd say its from the mod itself, since as a PC COD2 player, sten gun exists during Caen missions. I remember hating it, though.
@@elmosanchezWhat do you mean a PC thing only? I remember reinstalling my old CoD2 disc a month ago and there ia a sten gun in the Caen campaign? I think it's because you're installing mods on you CoD2
I remember growing up and playing CoD original, none of my friends had it. No one had heard of it, and it was my own little special find. Now everyone I know also doesn't play it.
Hey, I’ve seen your videos floating around in my reccs and wanted say I really enjoyed this one. As a fellow history nerd I appreciate the perspective you bring that I feel a lot of other reviewers don’t have. People DO learn history from these games, so efforts to preserve the authenticity and accuracy of the events is always welcome. Also, your humor is hilarious.
Growing up playing this game I will never forget a time I had sniper rifle and went for a headshot. The helmet flew off the dude's and he flinched, looked behind him, and felt his head. At the time that was the coolest thing I had ever seen in a game. So many games now don't have those cool little touches
As an English boy when I first picked up COD2 and played through a Campaign with actual British infantry fighting in a historical battle, with Lee Enfields and winning gunfights, I was blown away. Almost all my previous knowledge of WW2 British history though games and films was that we just had special forces and spies and a navy, and our soldiers never really got the attention they deserved in ground warfare. Made me so proud to finally be represented as teeth arms troops in a FPS.
What I really like about COD2 is the weight mechanic. It basically makes it so depending on what weapon you have out, the faster you move. Naturally the bigger the weapon, the slower. So if you pull out your sidearm, you are extremely agile, but taking out a rifle will make you move a lot slower. It's such a unique mechanic that really lets you diversify your playstyle a bit more, especially since there wasn't a sprint implemented at this point in time.
I'd really like to see your take in a full video like this, but on Call of Duty 3. It's personally one of my most favorite games of the early franchise era, my second CoD I ever played coming in behind MW3.
This was not only the first CoD I've played but also the first console game I've played, I recently went back and replayed the whole game and man it still feels as amazing as I did when I first played it
Cool historical fact of the day: late actor, Christopher Lee actually was part of the British campaign in northern Africa, under the SAS, conducted a lot of top secret missions, and later in his life, a reporter ask him what he did in those missions, he said, and I quote! Christopher Lee: “Can you keep a secret?” Reporter: “yes.” Christopher Lee: “So can I…”
Still remember how he argued with LOTR director on how a person get stabbed reacts Not overly dramatic arrghhh but instead it was like the stab victim couldn't utter any words but gasping in pain Wonder what poor kraut he stabbed to know how that feels like
@@guts-141 dude for real that is a pretty good fucking argument, especially from someone who fought in World War II and seen some shit especially when he was part of the SAS
Unironically my first cod, I'm not even that old. it was like peak BO2 when I first played this. Also I fucking love how the old cod games had little documentary snippets
This game was my childhood, alongside the old total wars. My dad was certainly old and a therapist, in his free time he used to play multiplayer cod 2 with me... Good times.
CoD 1& UO & especially Cod 2 have a special place right under my heart tucked away and kept warm as my memories with them. I still after all theese years come backto them from time to time The funny thing is CoD 2 still have graphics that are great today. how is it possible that we havent seen a remaster or a remake yet?
@@meiba4691 thats what i loved about COD2 they showed the battle of pointe du hoc which is quite underrated it was really cool hearing reagen doing the speech at the end
The hardcore tactical mod is incredible once you set it up,it even has a Italian and German campaign to. (And I think add-ons you can add to the mod to and it also add more Russian missions even a Berlin level)
You absolutely hit it on the nail when describing the Silo. For me this was my absolute favorite mission, and almost endlessly re-playable due to the open-ended objectives allowing you to approach the mission in any order (Yes, I believe the USSR Train Station level did this first but in my opinion The Silo did it much better). I was really disappointed that this semi open-ended mission design has seemingly disappeared from every single CoD game after CoD2, with all of them adopting the FPS on rails design that COD4 popularized that herds you through insultingly tiny and suffocating arenas between setpiece moments. To me Call of Duty 2 really still holds the crown for the best CoD as well (COD4 and WaW being relatively close seconds), particularly for WW2, as for CODWW2 and Vanguard, the less said about them the better as they are the ones that deserve to be forgotten.
I also think one of CoD2's biggest merits is that your character and story takes a seat back. You aren't the super soldier solo guy main character that saves the world like in most of the Call of Duty's, just immersed in the experience of being a guy trying to survive in World War 2. The journals inbetween the missions in CoD2 highlight that sort of immersive feeling of reaing an actual daily diary of a soldier.
Too bad you couldn't play the MP, it makes sense though. COD2 had a myriad of mods that were eventually replicated in COD4. Also, the "That's it?" I'm glad you wanted more. Just goes to show how fun the levels were, seriously, they might have been very few missions, but they were all super fun. Seriously, Hill 400 has to be the best mission to ever come out of any COD game. I know it's basically Point du Hoc, again with taking a position and defending it... but there's something more about it that makes taking that damned imposing hill and then having to defend it, along with your wounded, at the very top with nowhere to retreat, unlike the Beach which you retreated to several points. Also, as much as I like Captain Price... can we have McGregor back? He's not just a Scottish guy, he's your best friend.
I think in cod 2 the map design was my favorite thing, when you have to capture a village and you can roam free on the map, after this WaW felt like I have 1 path in the map.
Imagine a Call of Duty game set in Italy during the Gothic Line campaign playing as New Zealand, Indian, Canadian, Polish, Brazilian, South African and Italian partisans.
this was the first cod I ever played and I replay it to this day because I love the campagine and the memories I have made while playing. thanks for talking about such an amazing game
Watching commentary since 2015 and knowing all the memes in the video to do with it makes this video so much more enjoyable. You remind me of the earlier days of game commentary.
One quick thing!: There are sten guns and crosshairs in the VANILLA version of the game, which I was NOT playing. I was playing a gore mod, and I've had it for so long that I forgot that sten guns and sights ever even existed in the game to begin with. I don't think the gore mod changed anything except for a few small things related to weapons, so all the rest of the input in this video should still be accurate, if a bit subjective. Thanks to all the civilized commenters who pointed that out. 👌
Good video
Weird, my reply got deleted.... I didn't give any link. I was just telling you to get the Hidden & Dangerous game that is on Steam.
And there is an awesome overhaul mod for the remastered game that is part of the H&D package.
You're supposed to use the binoculars to aim the gun in the tank missions.
Have you heard of "Call Of Duty 2 : Finest Hour"?,unless that was what you meant by the follow up game.
Because it did have some representation for the British campaign,one Sikh soldier in a turban,in exchange for the British campaign to have less missions then both the prior Russian and following US campaigns.
People forget that cod used to be a very well made and innovative series. Biggest fall off in gaming
Unfortunately
I miss when you didn't need internet to play cod
“Train go boom”
If you could make billions of dollars mainstreamizing a game you probably would do it.
They still do alright. I was there since rising sun
Call of Duty 2 was the first game I ever played. It will always hold a special place in my heart.
Was the first CoD I played as well and I will always love it.
It was my first WW2 COD game I played but was played MW3 a lot.
Mine too!! Because of this game, I learned English!!
Same here, I still have the disc and it runs well on my Xbox 1
It was my first COD too
Fun fact: In the Soviet training mission, right after you leave the room with the German prisoner in it, you can hear a very distinct shot. If you then go back in the room, you can see that Letlev has shot the prisoner.
Yep ! I was like man he told you everything, it's not his fault if you don't speak german.
if u afk and dont do the mission at the training the trainer dude shot u :D
Good
The prisoner has a luger in his hand so it's possible he attempted to shoot Letlev
i mean yeah dude...2003-2006 is forgotten call of duty games out there.
Honestly the dynamic callout system was one of my favorite things about the game. Especially with the fact that the soldiers shout out each others names. It makes the soldiers I'm fighting with in the game feel much more real, hearing them shout something like "O'Brian, I'm reloading, cover me!" or "Matese, german soldiers by the lower wall, watch yourself!"
Plus they are legit helpful in combat when they shout sniper positions
its fun when you hear the germans do it too, ive learned a bit of words thanks to the game and find it funny when i hear both sides say basically the same thing
MACGREGOR!!!!
MY LIFE WILL BE COMPLETE WHEN THEY REMASTER THIS ONE DAY. I have been dreaming of this for YEARS. It’s my favorite COD. It’s my very first COD I’ve ever played.
This was my first COD, my favorite COD. I loved the UK and USA campaign the most tho, as I’m polish and quite hate USSR
@@MrPeteeer amen brother! It was such a good game!!
I think it will be no good, because of all the Microtransactions these days
If we were ever gonna get remasters of the original 3 Call of Duty's, this year would have probably been the year it would happen for the 20th anniversary, starting with CoD 1. Sadly, I don't think Activision sees any money or market in remastering the pre-CoD 4 games. It sucks because CoD 2 is my favorite game in the series.
cod2 zombies were different
It's incredible to me that one of the best singleplayer mission structures ever was in a game as early COD 2 and almost never seens again, the Sniper defense mission in Stalingrad where any enemies that you can't kill from afar actually makes it into the house and you need to engage in close-quarters combat instead. Absolutely amazing game.
I would say cod4 has the best mission structure of all cods. Been playing the remastered recently and Its nice to replay some of the levels.
@@trager8933I love CoD4 but no
Pavlovs House from CoD 1?
@@snoopdogg64cod 2 to me it's the Best Game but Pavlov is gold
mass effect 2 when you first meet garrus a scene like that plays out
If you want something to really blow your mind.. Call of Duty 1 and 2 were released only 2 years apart but are VASTLY different in terms of visuals, sound design, 3D models, textures, etc. It's truly insane to look at. It shows how fast gaming tech advanced in the early 2000s.
Call of Duty 2, 4 and WaW are the best CoD games and nothing after that has hit the spot.
exactly! cod blew my mind but when cod 2 came out i thought this was the moment videogames reached the absolute peak. it was like all the war movies meshed together and you are thrown right into the middle. In 2003 when cod1 came out, the quake3 engine was already at its final day.
@@snakeplissken2148 I still remember on CoD2, the mission where all the Germans are upstairs so you plate explosive charges on all the load bearing walls then blow it up once you’re outside. I just remember the building crumbling and the smoke/dust filling the air.. It felt so real lol
It's only mind blowing when one doesn't whatsoever realize how rapid progress of video games making was in early 2000s. In 2004 you had GTA San Andreas which looked dated next year. In 2007 meanwhile Crysis came out, and looks amazing to this day.
@@ReichLife Yeah i Was there. But Cod was on another Level Not because of the graphics, but the intense effects and feeling. No other game had this,except medal of honor maybe in the Mission you dropped on normandy.
@@snakeplissken2148 Em, Halo? Half Life?
Call of Duty 2 feels like a game where you relive the memories of veterans. Wish future cod games could've kept in the same spirit as thay
i guess you could say the kids nowadays could go back to this and relive the memories of the veterans and US the game veterans who grew up with this
Except you aren't a veteran and never will, you are just a fat coward that plays war shooters afraid of fighting for your country.
Sadly Activision is just greedy and lazy as Vanguard took nonsense to whole new level
U do for at least part of the campaign. They brought on army rangers for the battles in the American campaign and Brits for the british. Ur reliving their actual memories of those fights.
there are no veterans from space warfare yet so we gotta wait for a conflict like that so we can have the spirit
@22:50 "Sgt Randall, the guns are gone!" "WHAT?" "THE GUNS. AREN'T. HERE!" That line will forever be embedded in my memory
“The Krauts must’ve moved them someplace else!!!!”
@@lucasbailey8878well hell, keep moving we're sitting ducks out here!
I first played the game when I was 9. I vividly remember the opening scene for D-Day and the name Taylor. Later that year around Halloween my mom got me a beautiful blonde German Shepard. I named him Taylor for reasons that should be obvious. He died last year at 13 years old. I miss you my boy.
Rest in Peace Taylor.
The flash backs
@@vlauthentiq636to defending hill 400 on veteran when they fucking bum rush you from all angles and grenade your ass like they’re the SS defending the goddamn reichtag
The reason why you never had a cross hair for the tank portion, was due to the fact you weren't playing the vanilla version. You had some sort of realistic mod in place. Extra gore/blood splatter, more dynamic rifle manipulation, and some other improvements
Back 2 Front? That's a great mod but kinda janky with variety
Yeah this guy isn't accurate in describing the gameplay, such as saying that the Sten gun isn't in the game when its actually in a few missions. This mean this guy either played a modded version of the game without realizing it, or he just watched someone else's entire game playlist that is modded and haven't played the vanilla game
@@999haunted Now I think he's recording on B2F, which is a great mod but kinda janky in enemy buffs
@@teslasharkhe is not playing on B2F
the cross hair can be swithed off
There is a sort of "prequel" mod in cod 2 called the Spanish civil war mod. Apparently actual veterans were consulted in the making of it. Definitely recommend.
I cant seem to run that mod
@@hannibalburgers477 Yeah, it doesn't run on retail it seems. I had to replace the .exe with a custom one.
It's indeed worth playing, though there's a bit of invisible walls and infinite spawns.
I was on FileFront when it was made, most mods for CoD2 that were total conversions were hugely helped by MCh2207Cz, who has his Back2Fronts mod which adds incredible realism to the game.
What's the name of the mod and where can I find it?
World at war always seems to overshadow 2. 2's really good though and I prefer it to waw as well
I like 2, its my second favorite ww2. But i prefer the dark atmosphere of waw.
I believe WAW is the better WWII game, but I believe 2 is the better Game.
Ehhh. Depends. CoD II imo is the better game purely in terms of gameplay imo. But in terms of a more dark and realistic setting and theme, WaW is better. Overall tho, I do kinda prefer CoD II over WaW
@@elmosanchez WAW really isn't realistic honestly.
@@croatbruhmoment2910 I think gritty is more correct, as there is a vast ocean of mods for WAW to fix all of its historic inaccuracies. I played COD 1, 2 , and 3 before ever touching WAW though which adds a bias
I played Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360 and I was so shocked at how gripping and fun it was that I 100%'d it. I remember struggling with one particular mission in insane difficulty, trying to clear out a church filled with Germans. I'm probably going to grab it on Steam at some point and relive it. Truly a wild experience.
Was it The Tiger? That mission aggrevated me to no end on Veteran
be careful with steam version check reviews
I played it twice back in 2006. First pretty much standard run and the second time with a realistic sounds mod that made the game feel like you were inside the "Saving Private Ryan" film.
Ah yes The Tiger, that church is the cause of my broken s key, trying to avoid grenades since throwing grenades back aren't invented yet
Was it the Tiger or the 1st Hill 400 mission
I adore the pre-COD4 games and how they played out more like a documentary, or a flashback from a veteran telling his tales. I even remember playing COD 3 and watching the bonus features you unlock, which were interviews with different veterans from the war. Really felt like a tribute to the people of that time, and some of the later ones like World at War and Black Ops still felt historical, in a way, like using real events and war footage. Even COD 4 had a lot of that same classic tone to it, even if that was a more story-driven game before MW2 cranked it up.
They used to be more grounded in reality. Like you said, a documentary or flashback. Then they turned them into something trying to mimic a summer blockbuster action movie instead of a historical event.
Honestly the original Modern Warfare wasnt amazing, but it was a fun experience. World at War wasn't too bad either. However, Modern Warfare 2 was meh, but people loved it, and that just enabled the devs to make more and more forgettable games, because everyone ate them up without really complaining. And how could they? For many, Modern Warfare 2 was their first videogame. It's one of the titular videogames that made videogames mainstream outside of Nintendo. People didn't know better.
@@Drbeckerproductions The first Modern Warfare is when they started being less grounded in reality. Then Modern Warfare 2 went full on over the top action movie. World at War was really good IMO, but that was the last one I enjoyed.
@@DrbeckerproductionsI think your memory of that time is a bit off. COD4 rapidly became huge. People were calling it a Halo killer, which the series did end up being. By that point, Halo had already taken gaming, particularly console gaming, mainstream. Even COD2 was widely appreciated too bc it was a 360 launch title iirc.
gotta say, it’s wild watching a video talking about COD2 like it’s a hidden relic of history. To me, it still feels relatively recent. I’m just getting old lmao
This game had a vibe that your school required you to play this game all the way through as a homework assignment, for some reason. I always did love the educational aspect of this, I was hugely into WWII as a child, and even I never knew the battles of Stalingrad, or the North Africa campaign of the British Royal Army.
same here its what got me into ww2 history in elementary of course the teachers didn't like that i knew this stuff at an early age but i was pretty smart everyone has told me for years autistic people are smarter than what most think when i did get into military history in high school i did a big project on the Battle Of The Bulge and the teacher was very impressed
That was put perfectly
Call of duty 2 was a very early peak for the franchise imo
When the series came out in the early 2000s it took a lot of influence from the miniseries Band Of Brothers and even at one point had actors do the voice work in COD 2 specifically it's spin off Big Red One
in my opinion cod peaked at world at war, then started to decline afterwards.
@@h1tzzYT the ww2 genre was in a decline by the time WaW released while it did do good everyone was getting tired of WW2 i don't think i touched a ww2 game well into 2017 with cod ww2
@@Viper-jr4sp well it might be true, im looking more as in retrospective rather than what was popular at the time. cod WaW is the last cod which tried to be authentic, not to mention it had actually decent story. There were quite a few decent cod's released afterwards but never reached the same or higher level imo.
Cod infinite warfare is actually super underrated and it was released at a wrong time, i remember how everyone hated on it because of its theme, but it was the last cod which had actually good campaign.
They went too movie like with WAW. But , it was more impressive tbf. An emotional experience.
Unknown fact: The game included the Spanish blue division, as some soldiers in German uniform had in fact the Spanish flag on their helmet
NGL I thought I was schizo when I saw that
Never ever forgot this gem. Still feel the same when I play it today. It got me so interested into the dark history of ww2 and that it was actually a real horrible event.
Who would have thought that? Totally unexpected that war is horrible.
@@darthjohnny33 I was 6. What I mean is WW2 only existed as an idea for a movie and a game for me back then but this game made it real.
I remember my dad played this game with me when I was younger. He loved it. He doesn't play video games often
That's very wholesome, actually
Couldn't agree more. I wish the way damage was calculated in cod 2 was kept in later games :/
19:20 I don't know what mods you were using while recording, but in the vanilla version the British do use Stens in the European portion of their campaign. Very nice detail how they use the Thompson (incorrect one as they used the M1928 but still) in 1942 and Sten in 1944
Might be the back to fronts mod
I loved how they incorporated historical accuracy into the games difficulty. For example the Germans don't get the stg44 up until the later parts of the game. Which makes sense since the stg didn't exist before 1944 and it also makes the late game more difficult since enemies using it can shred you in 2 seconds.
Yeah I noticed that.
I also noticed he had a Webley revolver at the start of the British night raid mission. But this level always starts with Thompson/Enfield for me.
There's a webley on a table in the house you start in. Pretty sure its the only place you can get it in the campaign.
Also when I used to play the crusader tank mission as a kid, it did have crosshairs!
COD 1 and COD 2 will always have a special place in my heart, playing them as a teen is the experience I will never forget.
"You hear Norman has been sent home?"
"Lucky bastard."
That "lucky bastard" lost his leg
@@elmosanchez YES! Someone got the reference!
That was also one of my favorite missions.
@@elmosanchezstill better than this bleeding desert
@@Britishball6Gordon Bennett! What was that?!
Usually there are crosshairs on the mounted weapons & tanks. Whatever mod you have installed which increases the gore (the base game doesn't have any dismemberment) seems to have changed a few things elsewhere which have contributed to your issues. The guns also don't usually lag as much behind your aim as they do in your version, some of the sounds are changed (like the assault on pointe du hoc scene where you're dismounting the boat), and in the british missions there are usually Sten guns, not sure what mod you have installed which is changing that.
Still enjoyed the video, I tend to agree with most of your thoughts and also wish there were more missions. I think the main reason cod2 felt so good to shoot targets in was because all the rifles are what became sniper rifles in later games, just without the scope. The high damage means you have a very powerful weapon at most times, rather than having an assault rifle whose damage is similar to a submachine gun.
Oxhorn syndrome.
Beating this game on max difficulty has to be one of the toughest fps challenges I’ve done. Hill 400 was a brutal slog and helped sell just how insane a task it was irl. But it’s also one of the most fun fps challenges I’ve ever done, really enjoyed it!
when my graphics card overheated on my old pc 5 years ago and couldnt play anything else on my integrated card, i would play the whole campaign with pistols only on veteran. beautiful experience
I still recall how I was struggling there even on easy when I was a kid 😂.
@Kantorath You got to be joking. Wolfenstein 3D is harder then this.
Now think, men did this in real life
Dear lord! Hill 400!!
Call of Duty 2 always held a special place in my heart solely for the Pointe du Hoc landing mission : the landing took place only a few kilometers aways from a village where my grandparents used to live and where they are buried today. During my childhood, every summer, I would spend a month here and would often visit the Pointe du Hoc site. To this day, you can still see the gaping holes left by the intense shelling of the area and I'm amazed how accurate the place look in-game compared to its real-life counterpart.
My parents also befriended a US veteran (thanks to a veterans organization I believe) from the 2nd Rangers Batallion who landed there and climbed the cliffs. My father told me once that this veteran came back to France once for a ceremony in Normandy. My grandfather took him and my father on his fishing boat so they could see the cliffs from the sea. That veteran was an old-school rugged Texan who spend his entire life in the military, but according to my father, he cried a lot when he saw the cliffs from the sea.
So even though I'm having fun playing CoD 2 from time to time, I often think about guys like this veteran, or unlike him, I think about those who weren't lucky to survive this war, and I feel grateful for never having to live through such an atrocity and I can't thank them enough for their sacrifice.
Sorry for the long comment, I got a bit carried away ^^'
EDIT : I'd like to add a funny story about that veteran. We have a picture of him in shaking hands with Ronald Reagan in 1984 for the 40th anniversary of D-Day, the day Reagan made his speech that you can hear at 25:50. Being an ardent republican, that veteran gladly shook his hand. However, a decade later, for the 50th anniversary, it was Bill Clinton's turn, who was then US president and a democrat, to make a speech and meet the veteran. In order to avoid shaking hands with Clinton, the veteran pretended to have his right arm in a cast.
Salute dude, Being a CNJ fan Leonard Bud Lomell who was a railroad employee fought at Pointe Du Hoc and Hurtgen Forest at Hill 400 with the 2nd Rangers. His experience was also the basis for this game's campaign
USSR did actually send people without weapons to fight. Stalin was insane
Dont know how to describe it but unlike in other COD games in COD2 you can really "feel" the punch of the bullets hitting enemy bodies.
About 5:25 ... that did happen, yea... but not in Stalingrad, it was during the the first moments of barbarossa, during a big pincer movement in Ukraine, many soviet units were encircled, they tried to break out of the pocket, but since it was the start of the concflict, not everyone was well equipped, and in one of these attacks, not everyone was armed with rilfes, some only had pistols or straight up knifes, It happened in Odessa if I'm not mistaken
And about executing retreating soldiers, it also happened, not in Stalingrad, but still in Ukraine in 1941, I dont remember who exactly, but a pesky officer was desperate for a victory against the advancing german army, i think it was near the border between Ukraine and russian, he sent a unit to attack, they retread, he was super mad at it and shoot them with his revolver, but he was imprisioned and executed for it. The USSR did have many barrier troops and penal battalions though
But those are isolated cases, results of bad leadership, logistics and desperation, the USSR was absolutely awnful and horrible, but these specific things were not the rule
Great comment. Thanks for the refresher.
It happen even in stalingrad my boy even shot dead for not following direct orders
Yeah it's always simplified into either it happened all the time or not at all. The Soviets used prisoners in combat who would be forgiven for their crimes and the reputations of their families restored after a certain duration of combat or their death. They were sent to the worst places doing the worst jobs including mine clearing and suicide attacks. The men in charge of them and serving as barrier troops were NKVD agents.
tl;dr it was "un-communist" prisoners that were motivated to die and communist fanatics motivated to kill them for disobeying orders.
"And about executing retreating soldiers, it also happened - in Ukraine in 1941" and 2022 & 2023, bit funny that modern Russia is doing soviet stereotype tactics for reals right now.
Yeah I don't know why he acted like that didn't happen. It wasn't 1 to 1 how it was in the game but the Russians threw bodies at the Germans and you can easily see that in the death toll.
The tank mission is actually good in cod2... Something was really messed up with your settings since you had no crosshair and the guns were flaling all over. Idk which version you played but the steam version does not have that amount of gun movement when you pan the camera and you do have a crosshair on the tank mission. You also have a crosshair on the binoculars, which you can use to aim at tanks long distance.
Apart from that, great video, cod 2 is severely underappreciated!
Yeah he’s definitely got some settings stuff going on. The gore is more extreme than any version I’ve played since 2005, never saw chunks and heads explode. The aiming sway is way off too.
@@trevorcoyle517 yeah I thought that was weird... Looks like some remaster mod or something
Yeah, something definitely seemed off with the guns at first and then when he talk about the tank mission that doubled my confusion. He's obviously using some pc version but as the trevor mentioned with the updated gore/graphics and what seems to be key binding abilities (he talks about choosing to put grenade throw on "g" although I only played on console so I don't know if this is normal) he definitely played some modded version.
@@BP-328 so keybinding is almost always a thing on pc games, but if I remember he made a big deal about binding grenades to the “g” key. Which is standard just about everywhere, it’s not noteworthy. But I always had both grenades bound to additional buttons on the side of the mouse I used.
@@trevorcoyle517 I personally like to bind grenades to the middle mouse button, smoke grenades to the front side button, and melee to the rear side button.
The golden age for the series was COD 4 to Black Ops 2 but the first 3 games that came back in the early to mid 2000s were also pretty damn good. After all Call Of Duty's roots were in World War 2 where you could play as multiple countries and set the stage for the later games in the series
Damn shame what Vanguard did to the lineage
Nah, you can keep all that modern trash. CoD was a WW2 game series then they cashed in on the modern warfare trend and killed the series.
CoD 4 to MW2. BO1 was the beginning of the end.
Defending that bloody hill in the American campaign towards the end was a nightmare on Veteran. Towards the end of it, I had like two invincible AI teammates left and German tanks were just parked near the bunker. Somehow managed to pull it off, but I spent a lot of time prone and popping up only to shoot a panzerschreck at the nearest tank.
Yeah at the start of the mission all allies are invincible but after the first artillery strike all but atleast a few of them can die, including private braeburn, which I consider to be the canon choice because he isn’t in Crossing the Rhine
I'd love to play a remastered version of this game
i sat down and played cod 2 last year and it was one of the first games I've sat and just played from start to finish since i was about 18. its not as flashy as new games but dam does it feel amazing to play its just fun and never stops being fun. even the bits that arnt as good you just keep playing because you know it will be worth it just to see what else this game has in store.
exact same thing happened to me with the first game and cod 2 it just sticks you in front of the screen like nothing else I have ever experienced
I usually play this game at least once a year. It is just a solid game that holds up.
I honestly couldn’t play more than a couple missions at a time, the lack of cinematics and lame missions just pale in comparison to WaW
its refreshing for me to see this game shines again in Modern CoD Fanbase. And it surprise me that many folks here actually does the first ever game played with this masterpiece.
This game will always bring back memories for me and just pulled it out again after watching this.
Had just gotten my first job working in a small supermarket, saved up my first month to buy a 360 in a package deal with this game only, couldn't afford the memory card so played the Russian campaign over and over the first week 😂
My friend brought his 32 inch absolute tank of a TV up to my box room and we somehow squeezed it in, split screen 4 player on Caen defending one of the houses in a game we completely made up 😂
These were the days 🙂
Nice story. I can relate
i taught my grandpa how to play this game and we played it togeather every weekend, he was not a ww2 vet he was a kid during the war but loved the game
I’ve bought COD 2 4 times over the years. Original 6 disc box for PC, Steam, 360, and then again for my Series X. Always go back to it when I want a pure WWII FPS.
I vividly remember that demo, played it constantly at Best Buy when I was a kid.
Hill 400 to this day is one of my favorite missions, working your ass to get to the top and then having to defend it, looks crazy when you set dead bodies on insane.
Call of Duty 2 was by far my favorite CoD, especially once you got to the US missions. You really feel the inspiration from band of brother in the banter between the NPC soldiers, like the "Silo" mission where the exchange about the mg crew leaving behind the ammo can makes it feel so much better.
There is something wrong with your game, The tank mission should include crosshairs, i also noticed the reticle was missing while you were using turrets.
Anyways great video man, i grew up with this game and love it dearly, also to add to the pointe du hoc mission, i went there a few years back, and the game's representation of fortifications and their locations are all incredibly accurate, they really did their homework on that level
I noticed he doesn't have crosshairs in the rest of the gameplay footage. I think he turned crosshairs off and didn't realize that it would disable tank crosshairs as well.
his game is modded asf
look at the amount of blood that spills every time a soldier is hit with a grenade
@@kawaiidestruktor7809 yeah i noticed that aswell, gore mod indeed
lmfao kinda weird how he even played a modded version for a review
yeah and another thing is that the sten gun features quite a bit in the caen missions , actually i dont think you get to use a thompson there at all
CoDs 1, 2 and 4 were huge parts of my childhood. Masterfully crafted games and I'm glad you're giving the oldies credit.
On PC 2 had so many cool modded servers and 4 had awesome modded modes like prop hunt, deathrun and paintball
This game was my first multiplayer game I've ever played. I just remember playing almost 24/7 in those internet caffes with strangers and friends, oh the memories.
I booted up the CoD2 like 2 weeks ago and I got goose bumps playing soviet Demolition chapter. I was so glad to return to such smooth gunplay and amazing atmospehere.
Will always be one of the best fps games made
Agreed
Shit taste then.
The victory theme when you finish the long series of battles at Pointe du Hoc is so goddamn fulfilling, it really gave the feeling of a hard battle for days and the speech at the end is the icing on the cake.
I’ve played those missions I don’t know how many times and it’s always such a rush of emotion when the music kicks in. The missions really do make you feel like, in a small way, that you just spent days fighting like hell just to stay alive.
The amount of time I spent only on Multiplayer and having fun, meeting new people, playing on weird servers is just whole other type of experience we had back in the day when internet was not really available especially in my country. Miss those old Xfire days 😮💨
Xfire.. man that brings back some memories
OHHHH Xfire.😭😭😭😭
CoD 1 and Battlefield 2 were my first multiplayer games
People forget that Call Of Duty was a Medal Of Honour competitor.
The D day section in Cod 2 is still one of my favorite missions in any game purely from the sound design perspective. Hearing shells wizzing around and impacting combined with gunfire and soldiers yelling makes for peak immersion. Much better then cod WW2.
Edit: Cod fans who play HLL and don’t try to actually learn the game are irritating as shit
That mission was my first introduction in gaming and my first time playing it at the age of 5 and I replay it every now and then
Come back and play Back 2 Front, it makes singleplayer even better
This popped up when I was reliving my old teenage nostalgia, my first self purchased console was the 360 and I played Call of Duty 2 so many times.
The campaign seemed perfect and as Scotsman I thoroughly enjoyed seeing North Africa as that is where my Grandfaither fought as part of the 8th Army. You were spot on with the observation that WW2 British forces are always overwhelmingly portrayed as English with a few of us token Commonwealth nations thrown in, it’s even worse for the former colonies who receive basically zero representation in WW2 media here in the UK.
Nice to hear the gameplay holds up, great video which made me subscribe, keep it up!
I always give big props to old games that aren’t a hassle to try and learn to play. Cod 2 was insanely intuitive for its time and holds up today in terms of control scheme, gun play etc
I remember being obsessed with COD2 on PC. The online multi-player was amazing. So many different mods, I remember COD2 being rhe first online game to introduce me to the zombies mod. Game starts with a few survivors and a group of "zombies" (German soldiers with knives and bloody cloths lol.) Also remember low gravity servers and full auto bolt action/unlimited ammo servers. So many fond memories back aro6nd 2006-2007 can't remember exactly.
YES I played the demo of this game too. I must have played through it almost a dozen times before realizing that there was a larger game that I could nag my parents to buy.
@19:22 I have the steam version of COD:2. And to my recollection, I recall during the European campaign for the British there being SOME Sten Guns even if the player might not start the level with one, I'm fairly sure it's possible to pick one up if another allied NPC equipped with a sten drops it. I usually would go for the Bren instead though.
I used to have CoD 1-3 on the ps2 and loved playing them over and over.
One thing I liked about older CoD games is that they’d have information on all the guns and vehicles you’d encounter in the game like a documentary slide
I used to play the demo mission on repeat so much as a kid, didn't even play the full game until years later, good memories
The callouts in this game were definitely carried over to the OG MW trilogy. In those games, you can hear the operators giving callouts over the radio like "Ghost, tango on the second floor at 12 o'clock" "Copy, I'm on him!" or "Sandman, targets by the loading dock, 3 o'clock!" "Negative, I don't have a shot!"
It's something that has definitely gotten lost in CoD but it didn't die with CoD2.
I still play this game to this day
Thank you for doing this game justice! This the first game I played on Xbox 360 and I can thank this game for making me the history buff I am today.
One of the first shooters I ever played was COD 2, an all time favorite of mine. Also thank you so much for bringing up the Soviet campaign inaccuracies, you are the first person outside of the online historical community I've seen mention anything of the sort!
This video was informative, nostalgic, historically rich and unhinged af. Perfect. Chef's kiss.
I played this campaign over and over at least 10 times and i always want to come back for more. Really with we could have camaigns like this, where it introduced multipule storylines about you being a soldier.
No super secret stuff, No epic heroes, just war. Pure war.
It's been 18 years and I still have the CD key of the original Call of Duty 2 my dad bought me memorised by heart.
i had a clan back then, a server and our teamspeak was always full. man what a time it was.. this was my first game i played online.. nice video
Loving all these smaller channels pumping out these banger video essays
Thank you
I definitely remember using sten guns in the caen levels in cod2, I think you're playing with a mod so it might be that and also this is a very good video
Might be a PC thing or the gore mod I'm using. Idk. And thank you btw :)
@@elmosanchez no worries
@@elmosanchezwhat mod is it that you use btw? Reminds me of that Merciless gore mod
I dont remember back2fronts having gore, nor Merciless having weapon inertia. So I'm kinda curious
I'd say its from the mod itself, since as a PC COD2 player, sten gun exists during Caen missions. I remember hating it, though.
@@elmosanchezWhat do you mean a PC thing only? I remember reinstalling my old CoD2 disc a month ago and there ia a sten gun in the Caen campaign? I think it's because you're installing mods on you CoD2
@@crumpetcommandos779 This video is FILLED with innacuracy's.
I remember growing up and playing CoD original, none of my friends had it. No one had heard of it, and it was my own little special find.
Now everyone I know also doesn't play it.
Hey, I’ve seen your videos floating around in my reccs and wanted say I really enjoyed this one. As a fellow history nerd I appreciate the perspective you bring that I feel a lot of other reviewers don’t have. People DO learn history from these games, so efforts to preserve the authenticity and accuracy of the events is always welcome.
Also, your humor is hilarious.
Thanks for watching, my bro :)
The Sten and Bren were definitely used heavily in the Africa campaign. This is the game I first learned about them from
Growing up playing this game I will never forget a time I had sniper rifle and went for a headshot. The helmet flew off the dude's and he flinched, looked behind him, and felt his head. At the time that was the coolest thing I had ever seen in a game. So many games now don't have those cool little touches
As an English boy when I first picked up COD2 and played through a Campaign with actual British infantry fighting in a historical battle, with Lee Enfields and winning gunfights, I was blown away.
Almost all my previous knowledge of WW2 British history though games and films was that we just had special forces and spies and a navy, and our soldiers never really got the attention they deserved in ground warfare. Made me so proud to finally be represented as teeth arms troops in a FPS.
What is teeth arms
The OG Call of Duty. When I first booted it up, I was just stunned by the graphics and then...then the campagne hit me. Perfectly orchestrated.
Call Of Duty had the soul.
'cod' makes the money.
What I really like about COD2 is the weight mechanic. It basically makes it so depending on what weapon you have out, the faster you move. Naturally the bigger the weapon, the slower. So if you pull out your sidearm, you are extremely agile, but taking out a rifle will make you move a lot slower. It's such a unique mechanic that really lets you diversify your playstyle a bit more, especially since there wasn't a sprint implemented at this point in time.
I'd really like to see your take in a full video like this, but on Call of Duty 3. It's personally one of my most favorite games of the early franchise era, my second CoD I ever played coming in behind MW3.
Hey so little thing seems that console had some stuff, on Xbox we got the sten and tanks had crosshairs! Great video
Thanks for watching :)
Who said it's forgotten ?
like 90% of the current cod audience is younger than this game and they do not respect it at all
CoD 2 is never mentioned nowadays when talking about the best CoD. CoD 4 is mentioned sometimes, but even that is overshadowed by MW2. Lol.
Gen Z
@@japanse_samurai9456alpha*
Most people don't know about anything before cod 4
CoD2 was my introduction to proper first person shooters. It was an incredible experience.
This was not only the first CoD I've played but also the first console game I've played, I recently went back and replayed the whole game and man it still feels as amazing as I did when I first played it
Yeah, me too... just finished it for the third time, second time on veteran. Never gets old.
Cool historical fact of the day: late actor, Christopher Lee actually was part of the British campaign in northern Africa, under the SAS, conducted a lot of top secret missions, and later in his life, a reporter ask him what he did in those missions, he said, and I quote!
Christopher Lee: “Can you keep a secret?”
Reporter: “yes.”
Christopher Lee: “So can I…”
Yeah Christopher Lee was based.
Also nice pfp. Always cool to see a fellow Dross fan
@@elmosanchez no, you’re totally Chad to know where my profile pic is and I respect that!
Still remember how he argued with LOTR director on how a person get stabbed reacts
Not overly dramatic arrghhh but instead it was like the stab victim couldn't utter any words but gasping in pain
Wonder what poor kraut he stabbed to know how that feels like
@@guts-141 dude for real that is a pretty good fucking argument, especially from someone who fought in World War II and seen some shit especially when he was part of the SAS
Unironically my first cod, I'm not even that old. it was like peak BO2 when I first played this.
Also I fucking love how the old cod games had little documentary snippets
Finally, someone standing up for COD 2
This game was my childhood, alongside the old total wars. My dad was certainly old and a therapist, in his free time he used to play multiplayer cod 2 with me... Good times.
I think the missing crosshair and the way the damaged are dealt are mostly due to the fact that you're using a mod
CoD 1& UO & especially Cod 2 have a special place right under my heart tucked away and kept warm as my memories with them. I still after all theese years come backto them from time to time The funny thing is CoD 2 still have graphics that are great today. how is it possible that we havent seen a remaster or a remake yet?
I remember when I played the Utah mission for the first time. For it's time it was an insanely unique level in gaming
it is not utah,it is the pointe du hoc
@@meiba4691 thats what i loved about COD2 they showed the battle of pointe du hoc which is quite underrated it was really cool hearing reagen doing the speech at the end
Loved the video, great concept and the balance between memes and seriousness was perfect, would love for a WAW review
Thanks for the view! :)
They had real historians working on the team for this game. Cod 2 is leagues ahead of Vanguard and WW2
"Knowing the state of hll they might add red dot sights soon" XD
The hardcore tactical mod is incredible once you set it up,it even has a Italian and German campaign to. (And I think add-ons you can add to the mod to and it also add more Russian missions even a Berlin level)
You absolutely hit it on the nail when describing the Silo. For me this was my absolute favorite mission, and almost endlessly re-playable due to the open-ended objectives allowing you to approach the mission in any order (Yes, I believe the USSR Train Station level did this first but in my opinion The Silo did it much better). I was really disappointed that this semi open-ended mission design has seemingly disappeared from every single CoD game after CoD2, with all of them adopting the FPS on rails design that COD4 popularized that herds you through insultingly tiny and suffocating arenas between setpiece moments. To me Call of Duty 2 really still holds the crown for the best CoD as well (COD4 and WaW being relatively close seconds), particularly for WW2, as for CODWW2 and Vanguard, the less said about them the better as they are the ones that deserve to be forgotten.
I also think one of CoD2's biggest merits is that your character and story takes a seat back. You aren't the super soldier solo guy main character that saves the world like in most of the Call of Duty's, just immersed in the experience of being a guy trying to survive in World War 2. The journals inbetween the missions in CoD2 highlight that sort of immersive feeling of reaing an actual daily diary of a soldier.
I actually feel the shooting mechanics in this game are closer to real life than what they developed into
Too bad you couldn't play the MP, it makes sense though. COD2 had a myriad of mods that were eventually replicated in COD4.
Also, the "That's it?" I'm glad you wanted more. Just goes to show how fun the levels were, seriously, they might have been very few missions, but they were all super fun. Seriously, Hill 400 has to be the best mission to ever come out of any COD game. I know it's basically Point du Hoc, again with taking a position and defending it... but there's something more about it that makes taking that damned imposing hill and then having to defend it, along with your wounded, at the very top with nowhere to retreat, unlike the Beach which you retreated to several points.
Also, as much as I like Captain Price... can we have McGregor back? He's not just a Scottish guy, he's your best friend.
I think in cod 2 the map design was my favorite thing, when you have to capture a village and you can roam free on the map, after this WaW felt like I have 1 path in the map.
Playing on veteran and having to use smoke to clear a path for your AI teammates to secure a house was great
Imagine a Call of Duty game set in Italy during the Gothic Line campaign playing as New Zealand, Indian, Canadian, Polish, Brazilian, South African and Italian partisans.
Still waiting for COD Korea
this was the first cod I ever played and I replay it to this day because I love the campagine and the memories I have made while playing. thanks for talking about such an amazing game
Watching commentary since 2015 and knowing all the memes in the video to do with it makes this video so much more enjoyable. You remind me of the earlier days of game commentary.