Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a marvel. One of the best, I think, games of last year and certainly one of the best in the Call of Duty franchise’s history. So how do you top that? Certainly not by having someone else do the next step for Call of Duty and having that step be an about face that returns you to the well-trodden mud, trenches and broken landscape of World War II, right?

Not so fast. While Treyarch might be fighting an uphill battle, trying to match the ingenuity and storytelling prowess of Infinity Ward in a played-out landscape, it’s not an unwinnable war. The game does find some new grist in the Pacific and mother Russia and there’s that cooperative zombie killing. Seriously. So just how well did Call of Duty: World at War fare? Hit the jump to find out.

This is no Modern Warfare, you can’t duck the comparison, so we might as well get that over with straight away. While the game is powerful, the settings dripping with atmosphere and the action non-stop, it’s still not the game of the year. That being said, the multiplayer is just as strong, from what I’ve seen of it so far, as its predecessor and the inclusion of up to four-player campaign co-op is a welcome addition. Also, despite the incongruity of the whole thing, I absolutely love the zombie mode.

They seemed to quite like it, so give the full review a read.