Call of Duty 2: Big Red One

Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is another entry in the console branch of the series, this time from the studio Treyarch, which took over the baton from Spark Unlimited and created a game independent of the parallel-developed next-gen Call of Duty 2 from Infinity Ward. The game follows the fate of a company from the American 1st Infantry Division, nicknamed the "Big Red One," from the landing in North Africa through the invasion of Sicily to the landing in Normandy and the final battles in Germany, and compared to Finest Hour it places much greater emphasis on a connected narrative thread, specific squad characters, and their relationships with each other – the whole story is also framed as the memory of an old veteran recounting it to a young private, which gives the game a stronger dramatic arc and a more cohesive narrative than the trio of alternating fronts had in Finest Hour.

The GameCube version was released simultaneously with the PlayStation 2 and Xbox editions, was identical to them in content, and technically stood between the two remaining versions, similarly to the previous Finest Hour. The controls were adapted for the GameCube controller with fewer buttons, but otherwise the player got the same campaign, the same missions, and the same difficulty as on the competing consoles, just with slightly simplified textures on distant objects and a somewhat smaller number of characters on screen in larger firefights, which was a compromise common to most GameCube versions of war games of this console generation, when Nintendo hardware usually lagged behind the Xbox in performance.

Big Red One is still regarded today as one of the finest war titles of its console generation thanks to its cinematic storytelling, strong atmosphere, and emphasis on brotherhood in arms, even though commercially it stood in the shadow of the parallel-released PC and Xbox 360 title from Infinity Ward, which carried the same number in its title but was completely unrelated to this title in terms of gameplay and story, which often confused players of the time when choosing in stores.

Why play it: For cinematic storytelling, strong atmosphere, and an emphasis on brotherhood in arms, which is why it still ranks among the finest war titles of its console generation.