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 Treyarch studio, which took over the baton from Spark Unlimited and created a game independent of the parallel next-gen Call of Duty 2 from Infinity Ward. The game follows the fate of a company from the American 1st Infantry Division, nicknamed "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, the platoon's specific characters, and their relationships with one another - the entire story is furthermore 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 three-front-alternating Finest Hour had.

The Xbox version was released alongside the PlayStation 2 and GameCube versions and offered the sharpest graphics, the most stable frame rate, and the most detailed battlefield environments of all three console versions. It is not a port of the parallel next-gen Call of Duty 2 by Infinity Ward for PC and Xbox 360 - it is a completely standalone game with its own campaign, missions, and engine, intended for the console generation of the time and built by the same team that had also made Finest Hour for Xbox, so the technical level of both games was similar, even though they were completely different games developed by different teams for a different audience and with a different approach to camera direction during both cutscenes and action sequences.

Big Red One is still regarded today as one of the most accomplished 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 PC and Xbox 360 entry 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: For its cinematic storytelling, strong atmosphere, and emphasis on brotherhood in arms, which still place it among the most accomplished war titles of its console generation today.