World war 2 games are still a focus for game developers it seems, COD2 covers  other battles in the war that weren’t included in the first game.

Graphically: Huge improvement over the fist game as expected, levels are pretty big and enough detail is there to make for some stunning areas. But they seem to have followed most of the recent games in that they made things look shiny or wet, although this allows the greater detail, it doesn't look right in some instances. Jackets that look to be made from cloth have shiny areas to them making them look leather when they are blatantly not meant to be.

The are graphic issues with geforce cards, often stretched textures some of which have covered doorways, which makes it impossible to see in to the room and makes you n easy target, i expect these will be fixed a the next driver release or a game patch.

My main problem with the graphics is the lack of HDR, i really feel for some of the areas that they have that HDR would have made the game fantastic, but instead they have gone with normal lighting and simple effects.

This scripted event, would have been a great with HDR
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Audio: the sound effects are great, they give a sense of distance and things like grenades hitting the floor are at just the right level to be heard but not overly obvious while in gun fights.

I've had an issue where sound cuts out if i turn while a character is talking , this could be due to my set up or again something that needs patching in the game. 

Gameplay: The play of COD2 is very similar to the first game, there is an almost arcade-ie feel to it but without it losing the difficulty and detail of a pc game.

The biggest difference in COD 2 to other FPS is that there is no health bar, you can take damage but if you don't keep taking damage you don't die, often you can be in several fights and still be ok afterwards, it's more like your health regens if you stop taking damage.

If a grenade lands near you a small symbol appears on your screen to indicate you are in range of it's explosion, I kind of like this feature but it also takes away the need to watch out for grenades on the floor or to listen out for them as much.

Conclusion: The game is much more a story of what happened in the war, it delivers well on all fronts but with recent releases of F.E.A.R and Quake 4 this doesn't really hold the attention as much as it could have.


Screenshots:
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