I've never enjoyed the feeling of being overwhelmed by anything, whether it be an overwhelming task that I simply cannot begin to dream up of ways to complete on my own, or an overwhelming environment, where I'm in a crowed area and have no control of this crowd that's bumping into me. People are bustling about loudly and despite being in a busy place, I feel so lonely, isolated and plagued with dread that if I were to disappear, nobody would even notice.

Never has a game created my fear of being overwhelmed as well as Call of Duty 3 for the Xbox 360, which throws you in to the midst of the battle - and you'll be given objectives that frighten you. Am I capable of doing what my Sergeant asks of me? Will I survive out there against the Germans? Then there's the added trepidation of feeling besieged, the fact that all of your allies are fighting alongside you but they are taking care of themselves and you often see them being shot in the head as you're charging towards the enemy. Surrounded by friends that wouldn't miss you if you were to be shot right this instant, everything is so loud, everybody is shouting, and there's no turning back.

Call of Duty 3 hasn't been developed by the critically praised Infinity Ward that made the excellent Call of Duty 2 - the game that won countless awards in 2006. Instead, Treyarch have taken the reigns on this highly anticipated title, and boy have they done a great job! For those who don't know, Treyarch is the developer that brought us Call of Duty 2: Big Red One last year, another CoD title I looked at and liked, praising it for its immersive storyline that ran throughout.

You can tell that Treyarch have had a great time creating CoD3. The campaign this time puts you in the shoes of four militants in four different militaries - you fight as an American solider, a Brit, a Canadian and a Pollack in their respective armies, and CoD 3 does an excellent, almost Tarantino job with the story, by flashing back and forth between troops - so in one mission you might be storming German houses as an American and in the next you might be driving around in affectionately named jeeps and blowing up flak guns with manually placed charges that you have to arm yourself by pressing a combination of buttons on the pad. Frighteningly realistic, I must add.

It's a puzzle to me how any developer can make WWII games feel so real - how they can give the player such an insight to the war and make it scary yet exciting to play is a wonder that is beyond my comprehension. Still, Treyarch's enjoyment doesn't stop at the back-and-forth storyline - you can tell from the environments you fight in that they've really let loose. Let's put a hole in this wall, so you can shoot through it if you choose to, or let's hide a weapon in a crate you have to melee attack to open, should you want to venture upstairs and search around. Some artists like to go wild when they paint and clearly Treyarch are similar, as some of the finishing touches here are fantastic.

The gameplay feels pretty much like CoD2 did, although there are of course some small changes, like when you throw a grenade your crosshair changes to a circle, which ticks around like a clock so you can hang onto it for the right length of time before throwing it to achieve some devastating results. The correct term for this practise is 'cooking the grenade' and what I tend to do is cook the grenade until it's a split second away from exploding, so it goes off in mid air. With this you've got a short-range instant exploding grenade that can wipe out a close by group of enemies with little effort.

In the campaign single player mode, putting your crosshair over your allies tells you their name and role. In CoD3 everybody has a role, and while you're playing as a solider in the single player, the multiplayer game has you filling the boots of characters like Medics and Anti-Tank troops, which I'll cover shortly. Back in the campaign, you can tell the difference between a Scout and a Light Assault troop from their uniforms, which adds another layer of realism. The gameplay is bit more interactive too; for example, you can climb on the back of a tank and tell it to take out certain buildings by looking through your binoculars and giving the word, then there are times when enemy soldiers may try to jump you and try to strangle you with their gun, to which you have to combat with insane trigger bashing and well timed button mashing when given the prompt on screen. More interactivity comparable to Tarantino style comes in the form of the great unknown, because sometimes you really don't know what's going on. One minute you're walking along, the next your vision greys and you fall to the floor. You think you've died, but then you wake up being dragged through a river by your allies, they get you back up and you're good to go - often in a different direction. Also expect to be able to drive a lot more vehicles in CoD3, such as jeeps, tanks and motorbikes, adding more depth to the single player and a lot more fun to the multiplayer too.

I only have so much time for single player in my life, whereas multiplayer games are in my blood - nothing beats shooting somebody that talks back to you and nothing beats insulting the sniper-hog who has just ruined that deathmatch with his cowardly tactics. Both the offline and online multiplayer modes rule in Call of Duty 3 and the only problem I have with multiplayer is selecting maps. On Call of Duty 2 you could actually see a picture of the map before selecting it, so you knew it was going to be a small area for you and your three friends to play in before actually selecting it. In Call of Duty 3, you can only select the name of the map, so unfortunately you're going to have to experiment. The problems end there though; Call of Duty 3 is everything CoD2 wanted to be. First of all, the lag online is pretty much non-existent, so you can jump into a match and not worry about shooting what you thought was the enemy, but actually turned out to be a bush thanks to the lag.

Offline multiplayer is great for offline laughs and there isn't much else to say about that. However, to my delight, you can take your offline pals online as guests, a feature that hasn't been seen in many games since the almighty Halo 2. Let's put that into perspective - offline multiplayer is sometimes better than online, because you can actually talk to your pals face to face, share crisps (or chips, US folks) and laugh at each other as you beat your friends down with the back of your shotgun. What if you could take your pals and team up with them against other real players online? That's better than having AI controlled bots in your game, so now you can think outside your room and not just have a four player battle, but a twenty-four player battle, a number that includes you, your friends, your online friends and his offline friends, and a dozen sniper-loving strangers to boot!

There are a lot of online modes for you to play, although you'll find that most people online just want to participate in Battles (which is just deathmatch free-for-all fun) or Team Battles - but there are other modes here, such as War, which is a little like King of the Hill meets Territories on Halo 2; you have to grab and hold flags dotted around the map. While this sounds pretty straightforward, those character classes I mentioned earlier play quite a large part in War. You see, you can select from a handful of classes - Light and Heavy Infantry are two good characters for running and gunning, carrying light and heavy weaponry respectively, as you'd expect. The Scout carries a sniper, while the Medic carries a shotgun, perfect for ramming down the throat of an enemy Scout, that's for sure! The Anti-Armor guy carries a bazooka, the Rifleman carries a rifle and the Support class carries a high damage .30 cal.

While each class had his own distinct weapon and grenades sets, in certain modes such as War, each class has their own special ability too. The Medics are useful, as they can revive other players, to stop the dead player having to wait for a constantly increasing respawn time, while the Scout can call in an airstike once in a while too. Each power takes a while to charge up - the Medic can use revive every five seconds it seems, while the Scout has to wait a good few minutes before his airstike is ready to use. On the plus side, even if you die as a Scout, as long as you respawn as same class, the charge up always remains; so if you die with ten seconds left to your airstike, when you respawn you'll still only have ten seconds to wait, instead of the counter being reset.

Battle doesn't allow for special class powers, but the classes still remain, so if you want a certain weapon, you have to select a specific class - although you can pinch weapons from your enemies as you kill them. The host of the game can change modes at the drop of the hat and has a lot of influence over the game type, which is a good thing, as some games force you to recreate matches to change game types - this means that once you've found a good game with a likeable host, you won't have to leave, as you could persuade him or her to change the map or the mode. There are a few other modes available to select from; there's a Capture the Flag mode and a Headquarters mode taken from CoD2, but I'll leave these for you to discover yourself.

With a High Definition TV hooked up, I can really appreciate the graphics that Call of Duty 3 has to offer; although it looks mighty fine on a regular TV too, the shine on your allies' helmets really does come through as dazzling on that LCD! Whatever your setup though, you can enjoy this game with minimal load times and maximum wow factor - I swear, you haven't seen a better looking war game in your life. Gunfire shouldn't hypnotise, bloodshed shouldn't satisfy and explosions shouldn't give you an unbelievable buzz of happiness, but all these things in CoD3 do - I'm afraid I love what I see too much; the environments are gorgeous and, as mentioned, incorporate masses of replay value, as the player is rewarded for venturing off sometimes, or taking control of a turret instead of sniping. While this has nothing to do with graphics, I must mention that the vibration features are some of the best I've ever experienced; when I was riding on the back of the tank that was carrying me up the hill, to feel the bumps in the road and the fire I was taking, well, it was out of this world. I really couldn't imagine this game without vibration - how could the PS3 do without this feature?

As the controller is vibrating and the tank is taking you up the hill, you're overwhelmed with not only fantastic visuals, but loud warfare sounds to make your experience even more authentic. The noises of the tank engine ticking over, the gunfire in the background, your allies shouting close by - you cannot hear yourself think from time to time, but this is a good thing, because this is what I'd expect war to feel and sound like. You don't often have a quiet level, unless you're sneaking around by night, but when you do get one you're sometimes thankful for the peace before the enemies spot you, sound the sirens and start running around shouting foreign words of hate, firing hails of bullets in your direction. And when the enemies do spot you and sound that siren, you can expect the excellent soundtrack to kick in to accompany the battle, music that is uplifting, the sort of internal music you'd want to hear in real war were you to fight in one - and with everything combined, you really shouldn't miss Call of Duty 3 for the world.

With a single player campaign that lasts a good eight hours, with loads of replay value in the form of higher difficulty levels and places to explore or do differently, plus the multiplayer mode that supports 24 players online and a thriving community that love war games as much as you should, Call of Duty 3 is one hell of an experience. The maps that can be found in multiplayer are all equally fantastic - you have your small maps for shooting in close proximities and then your large jungle maps for sniping madness. There's a great mix on offer and I'd imagine more to come over Xbox Live too. With all that and graphics that look shockingly realistic, plus sound effects and music that make you quiver with joy, who'd have known that war could be so overwhelmingly fun? Now move out and purchase this at once - that's an order, soldier!

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).