But before I get right down to business, it’s time for a plot rundown:  we follow a series of different soldiers in all different parts of the Allied forces as they rampage their way across the Pacific Theatre, up into Russia, BACK to the Pacific, back once again to Russia before taking on Berlin, and accomplishing a series of missions, including calling down rockets on Japanese Ha-Go tank forces, handling a Russian T-34 tank and running the guns on a PBY Catalina flying boat.  You will be effectively a part of the last and loudest hours of World War II.

And, in case you didn’t see this coming by the big number five on the title, yes, this is yet another in a long, long, LONG (and growing…) string of first person shooters.  Sure, they’ve got some additions of new gameplay in here—when’s the last time you got to drive a tank in first person?—but let’s face it; there’s only so much variety you can get out of this particular chopped salad mix.  There’s only so many ways you can make the same old baloney taste new and different.

However—if you’re willing to gut your way through a highly realistic, blood-spattered, downright gritty World War II simulation with more gunfire and explosions than even Saving Private Ryan could muster, presented in a format so eye-wateringly predictable that there’s almost no reason to play, then this time around, you’ll get a special bonus.   It’s called Nazi Zombies mode, and, though they may not specifically be members of the Party, the mode itself comprises a series of maps, some of which are downloadable, in which you and possibly some friends attempt to hold a building against a legion of zombies bound and determined to break in.

The down side of that, of course, is like I said: you have to play your way through the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN to get access.  I’m irritated by this.  I’d personally like to see more first person shooters involving zombies (and ZOMBIES, not second-rate 28 Days Later knockoffs like Left 4 Dead, thank you very much), and the fact that these bastards made me slog through a hell of their own making just to get a crack at some zombie killing fun makes me furious to the point of derangement.

So let’s sum it up:  Call of Duty World at War is not really a BAD game, it’s just more of the same.  They offer some excellent graphics, and some fantastic realism, and even some unique features buried in all the warmed over leftover crap that is their primary campaign mode, but let’s face facts—aside from a pretty new paintjob and some fancy bells and whistles, this really is just more of the same. It’s up to you if you want to take another foray into the same crap you’ve been playing over and over for years, but if you love the first person shooter and just can’t get enough, then this is definitely the game for you.

My answer?  Not a chance.  If it were possible to put a game on trial for war crimes, I would happily sit on the prosecution on this one.

You’ll play as Violette Summer, a British secret agent in the field in the declining days of World War II.  Violette is a lovely, charming lass with plenty of genteel English charm, and she’s also a trained instrument of death and mayhem.  She got that way after her husband, an RAF pilot, died in combat.  Feeling she needed to do something to atone for her loss–and get a note of vengeance in the bargain–she went in for MI6 training and thus came out a spy.  She’ll be neck deep in Germany with no support from the English government whatever, and she’ll be doing as much damage as possible to help bring about the end of the Nazi regime.

But she’s not REALLY in Germany right now–she’s actually in hospital right now, dying from massive injuries sustained in her spying efforts.  And you’re reliving her missions through a series of flashbacks.

This all sounds fairly innovative, of course, reliving your missions backward through an unusual perspective, but the problem is–the BIG problem, why I’d cheerfully put this game up in front of a firing squad, is that the gameplay is incredibly tiresome.

On the one hand, they’ve put some innovative concepts in here, such as a “morphine mode” which slows down your memories and allows you to engage in killing on a rampant scale, temporarily.  And of course, as numerous other gamers have already suggested, playing an attractive female character in third person vantage has some advantages of its own.  Admittedly, as advantages go, these are pretty minor at best, and frankly, of limited appeal.

The disadvantages are much, MUCH more tragic—mainly, this is a game that requires a lot of sneaking around, especially in the early stages, and I have never been one to enjoy the sneaking around.  I’m going toe to toe with NAZIS.  I expect to be able to bust some serious caps up in some fascists.  One particularly annoying segment in the beginning required me to jam a knife in a Nazi while his partner wandered off.  If after doing the killing on the first one, you don’t get the body sufficiently hidden in sufficiently rapid fashion, you’ll be attacked by the second.  You’ve only got the assassin’s knife you’ve been using all along, and that’s not going to do a whole lot of good against the German with the grease gun.

And that in a nutshell is the biggest problem with Velvet Assassin—entirely too much sneaking around.  If you recognize games like Assassin’s Creed (that one even HAS the word assassin in it), or Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell or No One Lives Forever, well, that’s not a surprise.  I kind of caught that one myself.    Oh, sure, some people can’t get enough of stealth action games like this, and for some, the adventure and romance of being a spy in World War II is just entirely too much to resist.  Depending on your very specific tastes, you’ll either love this game or wish it’d never been made.

The stand alone expansion adds three campaigns and three new multiplayer modes. New maps and units are also added to the WWII strategy game.

While it does not require the past two entries in the series, the expansion will interface with them so that owners of all have “complete access to the battles of World War II.”

It seems that Call of Duty: World at War will be the last Call of Duty game to be set in the World War II era. The UK’s Official Xbox Magazine quotes Noah Keller from Activison, the game’s producer, as saying the following:

I won’t let your readers read into the comment too much, but we are showing the final battles of the Pacific and the European Theatre and that lets us put a close to the war. I’m sure game companies will be making World War II games for years to come and World War II is a very classic war. But we’re happy that we put the war to bed.”

This will probably come as a joy to many seeing as Call of Duty 4 was so critically acclaimed for it’s modern day setting. But this just raises the question, what’s next? Call of Duty 6: To The Moon and Back?

"I can’t say that there won’t ever be a WWII Call of Duty game again, but … it’s gratifying that we’re able to show the close for once, rather than the opening," he said. "The war is over and both campaigns have a very clear ending."

To illustrate his point, Heller pointed out some parts of the great war that is yet to be explored: "People definitely haven’t seen the final charge of the Red Army, people haven’t seen what the fighting was like in Okinawa."

Call of Duty World at War is in development at Treyarch. It is currently in beta.

Also, to make sure you buy the game from before, the publisher has announced that pre-order customers for the PC and Xbox 360 versions will be able to take part in a multiplayer beta of the game next month.

“We are excited to share a sneak peak of Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer with the community,” said Treyarch head Mark Lamia. “The team has worked hard to build upon the great history and foundation of Call of Duty multiplayer and we can’t wait to go online to ramp up for our November launch.”