The third instalment in the Call of Duty series was developed by Treyarch and first published by Activision in 2006. It is the only major Call of Duty game that wasn’t released for the PC, and it initially came out for PS2, XBox and XBox 360, with PS3 and Wii versions following later.

In the single-player campaign, this time you get to play as American, British, Canadian and Polish soldiers, during a 14-mission stretch covering the Western Front in World War II in 1944. So, once again, this is historical combat seen from the perspective of various sides. And, once again, the Germans are on the receiving end.

Most of the gameplay staples of the CoD series have been retained, like the distinctive compass, the objectives screen, the sumulated squad play, the two-weapon restriction and the weapon-swapping.

Call of Duty 3 was criticised upon release for not being particularly innovative, and that is partly correct, but it does introduce quicktime events, the first of which is a shocking surprise for players. A German soldier jumps on you as you walk through a doorway, and he tries to kill you. You have to quickly alternate between L1 and L2, and then press the circle button, to push them off. You then have to do the event again to finish him off. Having just played through every Call of Duty game before this, I can confirm that none of them had this type of event previously. That said, considering the sheer number of people who worked on this game, you’ve thought that they’d come up with more than just a single noteworth innovation…

Ultimately, Call of Duty 3 is an amalgamation of everything that is good and has worked in the series so far. It’s a kind of “best of” the Call of Duty series to date, but without the precise control a mouse gives you…

I think, really, looking at this from a distance, Call of Duty 3 should have been innovative, and should have been PC-led. The main instalments of any series is where the innovation should be, and the spin-offs and DLCs can rest on their laurels a bit if they want. Maybe this should have been something in the middle – not Call of Duty 2.5, but something else? I still feel that it should’ve been PC-led, because – in my humble opinion – console shooters are fundamentally flawed. It’s the mouse versus gamepad thing again. And Call of Duty 3 is firmly a First-Person Shooter designed for gamepad play.

Call of Duty 3 was also released for the PlayStation 3, in 2007, with enhanced graphics and gameplay.

More: Call of Duty 3 on Wikipedia