With its satisfying blend of intense action, authentic atmosphere and cinematic production values, the Call of Duty series in its first two instalments has been one of the top first-person shooters in the business. Sadly, however, the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Call of Duty 3 have, in my opinion, proven to be a sideways step for the series, rather than the next-gen leap forward I was hoping for, suffering from a tremendous lack of innovation or even evolution past what the previous games had to offer. So, after playing and being disappointed by the other console versions, I staked all my hopes of finding at least a little something new and innovative from the series on the Wii. Unfortunately, even though the new gameplay style brought forth by the Wii's motion-sensing controls manages to inject some uniqueness, the same polish problems that plagued the other versions are still here (in fact, most are even worse now) and the production values and longevity have been extensively trimmed away in comparison.

For this third in the series, the Normandy Breakout sets the backdrop for Call of Duty 3's historical single-player campaign, dropping you in the combat boots of four Allied soldiers in the fight to liberate Paris in fourteen short chapters, following the American, British, Canadian and Polish roles in the conflict. Beyond that there isn't much going on with the narrative to bother caring about, which is common for the series; neither of the previous Call of Duty games had very captivating plots either, so I wasn't expecting that to change. The game tries to flesh out certain main characters in each faction, but never really pulls it off, and the way the story skips around between the different nations doesn't make for a very cohesive feel. It's also somewhat brief at only around eight hours long (though it doesn't even seem that long when you play it), and the cut scenes can't be skipped no matter what, which gets seriously annoying if you have to save a game mid-mission and come back to it later because, for some reason the cut scenes play over again after loading, even if your saved checkpoint is far into the mission at hand. Worse yet, CoD 3 on the Wii has limited replay value, seeing as how the much-improved multiplayer mode featured in the other next-gen versions has been taken out - in fact, this Wii version has absolutely no multiplayer functionality whatsoever, not even split screen.

The Call of Duty games have always excelled at presenting an intense wartime setting and recreating an authentic battlefield ambiance to suck you in from start to finish, but on the Wii, CoD 3 misses the mark big time. Visually the game looks worse than practically any PS2 or Xbox FPS released within the past few years, and even though I'm no graphics whore, it's still hard to ignore how dreary this game looks. As you fight your way through crumbling buildings, decaying towns and countryside landscapes, your eyes will be tortured by textures that are so muddy and dated that the environments all coagulate together into one giant mess of a game world - and it hinders the gameplay at times too, because it can be so hard to pick out enemies against such sloppy backdrops. If you can look past the ugly texturing, there are some decent graphical showings, such as adequately detailed character and gun models, and some impressive smoke and particle effects, but there isn't anything positive to say beyond that.

Patriotic orchestral music and some of the most bladder-shaking warfare audio ambiance you'll ever hear - from gunfire and explosions sounding off all around you to constant squad chatter that makes you feel like you're truly a part of the action - do help ease some of the visual pain you may endure here. Then again, the voice acting is fairly mediocre and much of the overall sound production seems recycled from previous games, so it's hard to be totally blown away. I also noticed a number of audio glitches that distracted me quite a bit, mainly sound effects and dialogue occasionally fading out or sometimes even becoming a garbled mess. Now, in reading around I haven't heard any other complaints of this nature, so maybe I just got a defective copy or something, but nonetheless my experience was hampered by these glitches so I must report them all the same.

Call of Duty 3's ultimate saving grace from avoid-at-all-costs territory is its intriguing new control scheme, one that's only possible on the Wii. Using the Nunchuk's analog stick to move around and the Wii Remote to point and shoot at enemies on the screen, the control scheme shows a lot of potential for what the Wii can do to revolutionize the FPS genre. The motion-sensing controls are also put to good use during the various mini-game segments, such as driving a jeep by holding the Nunchuk and remote tandem up in the air to turn like a steering wheel or engaging in scripted close-quarters combat sequences where you must pull off a string of indicated gestures to survive - even simple actions like reloading, swapping weapons and melee attacks are all handled by Wii-mote movements.

While these unique mechanics leave an exciting first impression, they do require a difficult adjustment period to go through early on, and once you eventually get a handle on things the controls still don't ever feel fully tuned, with aiming in particular being too sluggish and imprecise. Some of the secondary actions that are mapped to the remote's face buttons, such as tapping left on the d-pad to throw a grenade or finding the 1 and 2 buttons at the bottom of the remote to call up mission objectives and binoculars, also cause some problems in that they are tough to use without stopping for a moment get your fingers on them. Needless to say, these defects lead to numerous frustrations.

Unfortunately, the unpolished game design doesn't stop there. Amazingly, the AI, both enemy and team, is actually even worse on the Wii than it was on the other consoles, with enemies following predictable movement and cover routines, and in most cases turning completely blind to their surroundings as you and your squad stand right in front of them and they don't attack until you do - it's as if they know you may need a few seconds to line up your shot with the Wii Remote and so they give you a chance to orient yourself before attacking! Your fellow troopers aren't a whole lot smarter either, as they consistently move into your line of fire, block your way through narrow corridors and run blindly into enemy encampments only to get blasted away. The heavily scripted nature of the game action also feels dated more than ever before; watching enemies continuously respawn seemingly out of thin air until you advance to the next trigger point gets ridiculous, and at no time is there ever any sense that you can take out the enemy or complete an objective in any other way than what is forced upon you.

It pains me to say this, being such an adoring fan of the Call of Duty franchise and all, but Call of Duty 3 is probably the weakest game I've played on the Wii so far, and I've played nearly the entire launch window line-up. The newly introduced Wii controls make for some fun early on, but the novelty rapidly wears thin and what you're left with is a middle-of-the-road FPS that is short on replay value and overrun by dreadful AI, shaky controls and various other polish issues. Call of Duty 3 is worth checking out to see where the future of first-person shooters is heading on Nintendo's grand new platform, and during that process you'll at least have a somewhat enjoyable time with it while it lasts, but overall you'd be better off going with Red Steel if you need a Wii FPS fix or, better yet, waiting for Metroid Prime 3 to come along (whenever that may be).

Reviewed by Matt Litten for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).