Out of the blue without warning I got an invite to the Call of Duty 5 beta. I certainly was not expecting it this weekend but it was attached to my profile on www.callofduty.com so you might want to check yours too to see if there is an invite.

So I downloaded the beta and was expecting a fantastic World War 2 online experience. Except I was wrong, it is just like Call of Duty 4 but with older guns. In my opinion, Call of Duty is not like it used to be online with versions 2 and 3. Something has changed and I do not think it is positive. I cannot even put a precise finger to the problem but it just seems like the games are just run and gun, death after death and just a repeating sequence like that. Call of Duty 2 and 3 were fun, 4 and 5 just not fun at all. Now I know that many millions of people will disagree with me, but that is just my personal opinion.

Some notes about the game:

There are dogs – vicious dogs. You can call upon your dobermans to attack the enemy and death is not pleasant. You can shoot these dogs dead. Thing is though, unless you are lucky to hear the call from your team for the dogs being released there is no other indication these dogs are on your side so you may end up killing your own dogs. If the RSPCA get wind of this they will blow their roof.

Press UP on the D-pad and you get a bigger version of your radar so you can see positions clearer, whether you have time to do this in-game with what is going on is another matter.

Perks and ranking up system is pretty much the same but with different perks added.

What does disappoint me is that map selection is still random like it was in number 4. I don’t know why they removed the ability to select the map and replace it with the vote to skip option.

The maps themselves are okay. There is one set in a Japanese village surrounded by water. It is dark and you can hide in the water if you so desire. The next is set around some kind of Japanese temple and the other is sort of a desolate and destroyed train yard (again).

There are not many problems with this beta. I had some grenades stick to trees branches and some weird goings on like that, but the worst problem which must be fixed before release is that you will find yourself spawning right in the middle of a fire fight. This is probably the most annoying aspect of the game and I am very surprised it is happening. If I remember correctly, they had this issue with the Call of Duty 4 beta but later fixed it with a patch, so if they took the code from that game they should have taken the patches aswell.

I think that hardcore fans of Call of Duty 4 are going to love this game but I am sorry, like with the changes to Call of Duty 4, I do not like these changes either. It is a marmite game. I am however looking very much forward to the single player game when it is released.