Hey, that rhymes.

I picked up Call of Duty 3 for the Wii the other week for $50 and last night I spent my first couple of hours playing it.  I'll say now, Call of Duty 3 is one these games where you have to say, "just because you can doesn't mean you should."

At first the FPS controls felt pretty awkward.  This is perhaps because I've been playing Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition.   But after all the complaints I've read about FPS's on the Wii, I was surprised to see the sensitivity between aiming and turning could be scaled to suit anyones preferences.  At first I bumped the sensitivity down so I could aim more easily without turning, but as I progressed through the game I periodically upped the sensitivity and now I'm near the max.  So it didn't take long to get used to.  I can tell I'm going to hate going back to play RE4 again where aiming doesn't turn your camera.

You can also press A on the Wiimote to look down the sight of the gun.  This makes the Wiimote more accurate and tightens the spread of bullets.  You soon press A before firing off every shot.  The only time you won't is during those surprise encounters where accuracy isn't as important as shooting quickly.

Having never played a Call of Duty game before, I'm having a blast.  But unfortunately it's not all great thanks to the implementation of gestures.  To change weapons you swing the nun-chuck to the left or right.  This doesn't work bad, but at one point I had to plant some explosives which involved some unnecessary gesture work.  Push the Wiimote forward to insert the charge.  Swish the nun-chuck in a circle motion to screw it in.  Pull the nun-chuck back to pull the pin on the charge.  It's just stupid and clumsy and I found myself yanking the controllers in all directions to get the game to respond to my movement. 

Steering vehicles is also poorly implemented.   You are mean to hold the Wiimote and nun-chuck in each hand vertically and pretend you are hold each side of a steering wheel.  You then turn them around an imaginary axis to steer.   Again, it felt clumsy and eventually I gave up on the method and instead ignored the nun-chuck and just held the Wiimote vertically and tilted it from side to side like a joystick which seemed to work fine.

I think this game also reveals how poorly the Wiimote is designed for games that need to use more than 2 buttons.   Left and right on D-pad are used to throw grenades but I can't reach them properly with my thumb whilst maintaining my aim so I have to use my other hand to press the buttons.  Same when you change to Binoculars which is assigned to 2.  It's impossible to reach with the same hand without loosing your aim.

Visually I don't think the game looks too bad.  But at the point in the game I'm at now the slowdown is so bad I've died about 5 times in the exact same spot because I simply cannot aim.  My aim sticks and jumps about as I try to correct it, almost like there's an issue with the Wii sensor bar.  And it does it at the exact same spot every time.  Fortunately I found another path through the level where the game doesn't slow down but it's far more dangerous.

Despite my criticisms and the obvious issues with the game, I highly recommend it as a $50 purchase.  It's a lot of fun.  But with the clumsy controls and frame rate issue I don't think it's polished enough to pay full retail price for.