Call of Duty 4 Announced

The fourth title in the extremely well received Call of Duty series has been announced. Infinity Ward is now working on Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat . The title will end the series' reliance on the theatre of World War II, and will place gamers into a current-day setting fighting terrorists in the Middle East. While the chance to get away from WWII will be appreciated by game-players, not everyone is happy about that hackneyed title. "What followed [Medal of Honor] were such games as Day of Defeat (Activision, 2003) and Men of Valor (Vivendi, 2004.) Ubisoft briefly bucked the trend, boldly replacing the near-mandatory 'of' with 'in' for its 2005 release 'Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30,' but soon fell right in line with the rest of its industry brethren with the 2006 real-time strategy game Faces of War. Ditto for THQ's 2006 RTS game Company of Heroes. Later this year, retail shelves will be graced with THQ's Frontlines: Fuel of War and Midway's Hour of Victory. (That's why for the last couple of years, we and a number of our peers have jokingly created our own World War II game titles, Mad Libs-style, like Call of Honor, Men of Duty, Company of Brothers, etc.)"

Red Orchestra

[Nimey]

One good exception to the Foo of Bar naming rule (and a damn good game besides) is Tripwire Interactive's Red Orchestra:Ostfront 41-45.

It's a WWII FPS set on the Eastern Front, using the Unreal Engine 2.5. What makes it different is that it tries to be realistic, within reason. No crosshairs, you have to use your gunsights, and it simulates projectile physics, so no insta-hit weapons like /some/ shooters and you have to account for wind and bullet drop. It also does combined arms (infantry and armor, and soon an anti-tank gun), and VoIP chat is integrated so you can coordinate with your squad online. There's no offline campaign as such, but you can practice with bots just like in Unreal Tournament 2004. The bots are reasonably intelligent, but FFS don't let them drive your tank.

There's also a thriving mod community. Some make maps (10 community maps will be included in the next official update) and some make full mods with new weapons, maps, and sides, like Carpathian Crosses, which includes the Romanians and their equipment.

The game goes for IIRC $20 on Steam.

Day of Defeat's first release was 2001

[Pvt_Waldo]

Day of Defeat [dayofdefeat.com] came out in 2001 as a free mod, pretty much making it the first and not a copycat.