Whoa man! I'm having me some wicked déjà vu, or maybe it's another WWII videogame flashback? I had recently gone through both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Call of Duty 3 and now Pachoey just handed me the Wii version of the game. Won't the fighting ever end?!!! Jeeze! Well, I guess he coulda had me doing all the Eragon games.

All in all, I'm actually pretty excited to be reviewing the Wii version of CoD3. The gameplay, story, and levels are essentially the same as it's HD cousins but this version uses the Wii controllers to, uh, control all the action. Let's see how it goes.

Does whatever the nextgen consoles can!
Call of Duty 3 embarks on a couple of firsts for the series. It's the first time that the game wasn't originally developed by Infinity Ward, though Treyarch did do the Xbox/PS2 versions of CoD2. Second it's the first time that a Call of Duty title didn't debut on the PC. Supposedly Activision will have Treyarch do all the odd number Call of Duty games, while Infinity Ward will do all the even ones. Still don't understand why there's no PC version, though Infinity Ward swears that CoD4 will be on the PC. Anyhoo…

The timeline for Cod3 is during the Normandy Breakout where the allied forces are trying to liberate Paris from the German's grip. During the course of the game you will play though various campaigns as either an American, Polish, Canadian, or British solder. While it's cool to use different weapons, tanks, and vehicles from the other allied forces the game really doesn't differ at all and you're just any ol' Private John Smith. While it's disappointing that they didn't try harder to differentiate between the various allied forces (other than the accents and guns) it doesn't deter the great storyline and action from the game.

Action is his reward…
Treyarch, from Activision's Spiderman games fame, sure had its work cut out for it to port CoD3 to the Wii. All in all I hafta say they did a fantastic job. The graphics are a huge step down when compared to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, but that was to be expected. At times it feels like the graphics could have been a little better, as it feels very Gamecubeish. Nothing was removed, though, and the game has just as much action and craziness going on as the fancy HD consoles, which is amazing for such an underpowered console (or is it really that underpowered?) I wonder if I would have complained about the graphics as much if I hadn't played the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions before this one. I dunno.

The big dollar question is do the controls work? Well…sorta. They take some time getting used to. The wiimote and nunchuck give a mouse and keyboard type of feel to the game, which in theory sounds great, but the control is so sensitive. Hard to keep steady. When I started my first level, I was making myself all dizzy and sick from spinning around like a crazy, drunken, high on crack Gomer Pyle. You'll definitely wanna play around with the sensitivity settings a bit before you dig deep into the game. Another issue I had with the controls is you naturally get tired and when the action is slow I tend to start pointing my controller to the floor to rest my arms. Well when ya do this, your character is looking at the ground, which can be the kiss of death if the action gets furious in a hurry. Melee combat is the worse. It just doesn't work. You pretty much flail around the controllers in a back and forth motion hoping that maybe you'll get lucky and knock out your enemy. Honestly melee combat doesn't work so well in the other console versions, and is probably something they should remove/drastically change in future Call of Duty games.

If you can live with the graphics downgrade, be prepared for another big letdown with the Wii version; no multiplayer! No split screen, online, or nothin'. It's quite sad as this was my favorite thing about the other versions (especially the Xbox 360 one.) I can't believe
Treyarch couldn't come up with some type of multiplayer mode. This really hurts what was turning out to be a very good conversion of a title really made for a beefier machine. Not much reason to replay the game once ya beat the single player mode.

Is he strong? Listen, Bud!
I loved Call of Duty 3 on the other consoles, and the Wii version isn't too shabby either. The only real reason to own this is that you don't already have an Xbox 360 or a PS3. While many would like to think that it's the graphics and controls that would make ya move to the other consoles, that just ain't true. It's the fact that there's no multiplayer, something that pushed this franchise to the top initially. If you're just looking for a decent FPS for your Wii, then CoD3 is the title to own. Just don't plan on playing it with your buddies anytime soon.

- NakedBoB