I don’t know if it’s that games were hard to come by when I was a kid or that I’m infinitely patient, but I’m philosophically opposed to starting a new game while leaving one incomplete, which Call of Duty 2 makes particularly frustrating. (Yes, I recognise that I’m a full 5 years behind)

The problem with Call of Duty 2 is that they’ve spent so much effort to put you into the midst of a cinematic experience that they’re unwilling to ever deviate from the script. If you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of receiving a grenade to the face, when you’re miraculously resurrected the entire world resets and the clockwork begins again, making death the beginning of a bizarre deja-vu precognitive experience. All the Nazis are in the same hidey-holes, all the planes fly the same trajectories, all the tanks drive the same routes.

‘Nein! It iz not fair! How do you know vere I vas hidden?’

In the snow level in particular… I must have died about 15 times under mortar fire trying to figure out what I was supposed to do (I should have zigged instead of zagged), so as my reincarnation count added up I became a lethal psychic assassin, standing in the center of a town square and picking off hidden nazis through windows and behind fences, tossing grenades into the path of expected patrols. Even weirder, the other soldiers seem oblivious. I have personally wiped out entire platoons before they ever saw it coming, and my buddies keep telling me to hurry it up.

I think it could be made into a movie concept – like Groundhog Day but with tanks.