As irreverent as it is to those who fought and died during World War 2, it's hard not to be sick of the whole conflict. Decade's worth of movies- some good, others bad- and dozens of videogames with less of the good and more of the bad, and it's starting to get a little tiresome. Of course there's always the occasional classic that rejuvenates a flabby, insipid genre, and the original Call of Duty on PC was such a game, one that inspired countless pretenders, and earned many accolades in the process. Now, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One storms the beaches of the Xbox, but is it a battle worth fighting?

Big Red One is the console-only version of Call of Duty 2, in much the same way as Finest Hour was the designed-for-consoles version of the original Call of Duty. However unlike that particular rushed piece of garbage, Big Red One is actually a damn fine game. It follows the story of the American army's Fighting First infantry division, the longest serving division in the US Army, whose proud history stretches right back to the American Revolution. For those of you historically-challenged, that makes it almost as old as colonised Australia! At any rate, you'll take on the role of a green Private thrown in at the deep-end, slowly becoming a seasoned veteran of this most legendary American infantry division.

The introduction to Big Red One is ripped straight from Brothers in Arms; you begin in Maubeuge, France, in 1944, come to grips with the controls until you are badly injured in a scripted sequence, at which time you will flash back to the real beginning of the story, a year or so earlier in Africa. Going head-to-head with Rommel's feared 'Afrika Korps' accounts for the first few missions of the game, and Big Red One does a fantastic job of making you feel like winning the level is not a foregone conclusion. When a surprise offensive of Panzer tanks thunders into view in a blitzkrieg typical of the Desert Fox, you honestly have no idea if you're going to make it through unscathed.

Operation Torch and the many other African campaigns are rarely seen in the predominantly Euro/Pacific-centric WW2 games, so it makes for an interesting change in scenery. You'll also slog your way through another lesser-known theatre in the form of Sicily, the island just south of Italy. The game follows the real-life path of the Fighting First chronologically (except for the intro bit obviously- no chronotanks in this WW2 game!), and virtually every mission is based on a historical engagements in which the 1st Infantry Division participated in.

It's not just the battlegrounds that are varied: during your campaign you'll storm the beaches of Normandy on foot, drive tanks against Rommel in Africa, take to the skies as a gunner and a bomber, and control a variety of weapon emplacements, as well as act as a spotter for artillery and naval bombardments. It's a smart move on Treyarch's part too, because mixing the gameplay up a bit will prevent you from noticing just how linear the game is, and that you're doing the same thing over and over again for the duration of the 8-10 hour single player campaign.

Linearity isn't necessarily a dirty word, and in the case of Big Red One, it is used to create a tight, action-packed narrative that directs your every movement. Sometimes it's a little too heavy handed, and you will run into the odd invisible barrier or impassable 1ft obstacle, but it's always in the name of giving you a more blockbuster experience. Where it does become problematic is if you want to backtrack for ammo or health, because often sections you just finished will no longer be available to you.

Big Red One features a pretty good checkpoint system that saves your game after most large battles or met objective, which is just as well, because even on the normal difficulty you'll find yourself dying quite a bit. The later missions increase dramatically in length and difficulty, the latter thanks to these checkpoints being spaced out farther apart. By the final few levels, you should anticipate spending 20-30 minutes to complete the mission, and in a war-crime worthy of The Hague, your checkpoint status isn't saved if you switch off the Xbox.