The first and most striking aspect of Call of Duty 3 is the graphics. Smacking you in the face at a near flawless sixty frames per second throughout, it's easily one of the best looking games we've seen on Xbox 360 to date. The Treyarch guys have outdone themselves with jaw-dropping level of detail; your field of vision contains such a stunning array of soldiers and effects at any one time that you'll definitely need to stop for a moment to take it all in. Soldier animation is particularly impressive to the point that you could show COD3 to your own 'war veteran' grandfather and he wouldn't question this as 'real' with his dodgy old vision.
Weather effects such as torrential rain and lightning look amazing while depth of field optics make the view down the barrel of your gun look especially sexy, with a pull of the trigger also lighting up the impressive weapon detail, right down to serial number carved into the deadly black metal.
The game world presents to you a gritty, night-time wasteland like St Germain sur Sèves, as well as it does a warm, sun-soaked town like St Lo or an open, idyllic area of greenery that looks more like something from Halo, but every environment is full of thoughtful graphical touches including dynamic lighting, fire and heat blur and smoke that looks so natural and convincing you can practically choke on it.
Indoor buildings and houses are wonderful and look like they're structurally weak, even though attempts to actually blown them further apart are often in vain. But authenticity is rife; witness the addresses and stamps on envelopes of scattered, unopened mail, the brickwork of a half-bombed building and even the carpet looks like it's out of WWII. Sure, we weren't there at the time but we bet it all looked like this. Even pieces of discarded bread look suitably French. The point is, suspension of disbelief is rarely broken, and even a close-up examination of blades of grass or barbed wire will keep you immersed.
