Call of Duty 5: World at War servers are here, boldly extending the series after Modern Warfare by, um, bringing it right back to World War II.  The conflict we were all so excited about CoD4 finally leaving behind.  But despite this massive dose of anti-originality (seriously, guys, we’ve been shooting Nazis since Wolfenstein) it turns out the game is enormous fun.  And you’ve never shot Nazis in a resolutions quite this high before, and the new graphics are seriously beautiful - although they lead to some odd effects.

Yeah, fighting FOR this flag feels a little weird.

It turns out that warfare actually hasn’t changed that much in seventy years - or at least it hasn’t according to developers Treyarch, who were smart enough to look at CoD4 servers and say “Let’s keep the best bits of that even if it doesn’t make a lick of sense.”  So what similarities are there between the World and Modern Wars?

1.  War is brutal

One thing that doesn’t change is the instant noob-blender that is Call of Duty combat, requiring a reaction speed slightly faster than lightning on steroids and the ability to be shot four hundred times without losing your temper.  On a CoD5 server you have two possible states:
1.  In cover
2.  Dead
Dashing from building to wall in the shortest possible time is a key skill you’ll learn, along with a newly installed sense of agoraphobia - because to stand out in the open, even for a second, is to die.

But you get a taste of brutality before you even log on - as in the prequel, the “Set up a new Cod:WaW server” screen defaults to “Free-for-All”, the instant-death mode where it’s everyone against everyone.  WWII may be famous for unholy levels of slaughter, but even they didn’t have entire armies deciding “Let’s just kill the people on our own side while we’re at it.”

2.  Air Intel Is King

One of the revolutionary aspects of CoD4 was the all-importance of intel.  Those two little words, “UAV airborne”, meant more to a team than all the machine-guns in the world, and it’s travelled back in time to the front in the form of “Recon.”  Despite the fact that it’s utterly impossible.  Back then aerial intelligence meant knowing “they’re over there” about a day after the event - what’s the pilot doing, leaning out of his plane and throwing little drawings of the enemy dispositions to allied soldiers at a rate of sixty per second?  And in that case, surely there’s a better way to use the Flash in the war effort?

He was having fun behind our spawn until now.

Of course you don’t care if it’s possible, only if it’s fun.  Which it is.  Make the most of intel when you have it and save any artillery until the recon is up (even if that means dying in the meantime).  Just don’t get too dependent.  The camoflague perk still hides enemies from the air, which can be a nasty surprise if you’re playing “HUD map Pac-man.”

3.  Martyrdom

Alas, one barbaric practice has persisted throughout all the ages of warfare: the Martyr perk.  Reach level 20, gain the ability to drop a grenade when killed, and stop worrying about having to “aim” or “exhibit any kind of skill” when attacking.  Just throw your useless corpse into a flag room, get yourself rightly machine-gunned to bits, then explode!  Because we all know that people who do that kind of thing are loved and respected by all.

With Halloween here, the gamer’s mind turns to all the benefits of the season: large amounts of free candy, videogame-themed pumpkins and, of course, the target-rich environment of endless hordes of undead.  They’ve always been the best bad guy for the first person shooter: lots of them, usually slow moving, and they don’t have guns.  But you do.  (They’re also handy if you have to wussify a game like Carmageddon to get an official release).

Not that L4D is the only big-name undead fest on the horizon: Call of Duty 5 servers will also be able to discriminate against the dead in an extremely explosive manner.  The “Zombie mode” looks like being one of the best things to happen to the series - as well as adding some much needed variation to the extremely tried-and-tested World War setting, the bad guys are Zombie Nazis.  Zombie Nazis!  There has never been a better enemy!  You can literally do anything you want to those and not even the most ACLU-ified vegan kitten would object!

If you really can’t wait to get some cadaver-combat going, or you suspect that this Halloween is going to be “The Big One” and want to get some practice in fast, you don’t have to wait.  Logging on to a Zombie Panic server will get you some fast and furious combat, no waiting.  With players as both survivors and zombies you get to try both sides (especially if you suck at the former, because when you die you come back as the latter).

Another undead option is the original idea of Zombie Master.  Here one player, the Zombie Master funnily enough, directs hordes of minions to swamp a desperate team of human survivors.  You get to play either as the brave hero battling against the swarms of an evil controlling intelligence, or - even better - BE that intelligence.  Half Dr Evil, half George Romero, and all fantastic fun.

Get your Zombie-Blasting on this Halloween.  You know you want to.