YMMV / Call of Duty: World at War

• Best Level Ever:
  • "Black Cats" from the American campaign is remembered fondly by players for not only being one of the easiest levels (for starters, there are not grenades being tossed at you, but also for the air and sea combat sequences seen nowhere else in the campaign. While it is an on-rails turret level, it is quite fun nontheless due to the atmosphere, story, and especially the music creating a cohesive experience.
  • "Downfall" for the Russian campaign has the Soviet Forces in Berlin taking down the last major pocket of German resistance in their capital. The crowning moment though is the final part, where Dimitri, after being wounded by a surviving SS soldier, with Reznov's help, raises the Soviet banner over the Reichstag, complete with Russian soldiers cheering and patriotic music.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Japanese soldiers armed with Type-99 Light Machine Guns, especially on Veteran, where they can rip players apart in one burst.
  • Banzai Chargers are this as well, as they can kill players in one hit should they be caught off-guard.
• Game-Breaker: The MP40 SMG, especially on the console versions where the weapon was never nerfed. All of the SMGs were balanced around taking roughly the same amount of time to kill someone under sustained fire, but what the devs hadn't considered was what that meant for the damage dealt per individual bullet when the MP40 had a noticeably lower rate of fire than the others - whereas the fastest of the SMGs, the PPSh, deals a paltry 22 damage at most because of its extremely high rate of fire (the PPSh already being easily capable of annihilating an unprepared opponent if they don't react fast enough and taking over as the Game-Breaker of the PC version after the MP40 was nerfed), the MP40, firing at less than half the rate, deals almost 60 at best, making it one of the most powerful automatic weapons in the entire series. The most common class setup for the MP40 online is Dual Magazines for more firing without having to reload, Juggernaut to be able to withstand more gunfire and explosives, and Steady Aim to already compliment the already great hip fire and you become a walking one-man army capable of slaughtering dozens in close-quarters combat. There are other options that go well with this as well, particularly trading out Juggernaut for Stopping Power, which due to being a percentage-based increase in power means the MP40 benefits more from it than the other SMGs as well, reaching the point where it's the only SMG in the game that can kill in one headshot.
• Genius Bonus: The Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem plays for a bit during the Soviet invasion of Berlin in "World at War". "Day of Wrath", indeed!
• Good Bad Bug: Early versions of the game had Flak Jacket's damage reduction against explosives also apply to knife attacks, such that these attacks are not a guaranteed One-Hit Kill on a Flak Jacket user unless they've taken sufficient damage beforehand.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When rescuing Dimitri from German soldiers, Reznov says "Haha! Once again, you cheat death!" Yeah..
• Memetic Mutation: EIN TELEFONMAST!!!
• Porting Disaster: The Wii version. While the system's motion controls are put to far better use here than in Call of Duty 3, this version has its fair share of problems. Several multiplayer maps^note  Airfield, Seelow, Downfall, Roundhouse and Outskirts and a campaign mission^note Black Cats were cut, alongside the entire Nazi Zombies mode, animations are janky, the game's graphics in general don't even look that good for a 2008 Wii game, and there is a multitude of bugs.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: At the time its Downloadable Content packs were released, and for a while after that, many people simply bought the game for Nazi Zombies.
• So Bad, It's Good: Listening to the non-American multiplayer announcers in World at War is hilarious. Getting a 7-kill streak is even more rewarding when you get to listen to Sergeant Reznov yell out "Unleash the dogs!"
• That One Boss: The goddamn sniper duel in the mission "Vendetta," especially on Veteran difficulty. To elaborate: The sniper can kill you with one shot, no matter where you are (unless you're behind cover) or where it hits you, whose bullet seems to fly just slightly less than the speed of light as it hits you as soon as you see the muzzle flash, making your own chances of aiming near impossible, whereas he can absorb THREE FULL SHOTS ANYWHERE ON HIS BODY (Which Reznov claims "you just grazed him" - even if you clearly landed a direct hit on him - or "you only wounded him" - even if you clearly put a bullet in his head!) and remain not only alive, but able to shoot with the same inhuman speed and precision. Not to mention, he will occasionally try to trick you by seeming to expose himself... he's actually just presenting a helmet on a stick, and if you fall for the trap, he will spring up and shoot you dead before you have a chance to duck behind cover. The level is also compounded for American players by Reznov calling out the sniper's location by European floor numbering.
• That One Level:
  • Heart Of The Reich, especially the last stretch, is considered to be this by a lot. In Veteran mode, it's practically a given that a player will die a lot trying to get up the steps.
  • Burn 'em Out, due to the close-quarter fighting, and then the squads of snipers, banzai chargers, and the aforementioned Type-99 gunners defending the mortar pits.
  • Blood and Iron. Unlike every other tank mission in the series, which were incredibly awesome, this one just manages to be endlessly infuriating. Infinitely-respawning enemy soldiers launching Panzerschrecks nonstop. And unlike the usual for this series, they're really infinitely-respawning - even when you destroy the radio tower they're trying to defend they still keep coming, constantly shooting you with Panzerschrecks, preventing you from focusing on anything else, preventing you from regenerating your health, preventing you from completing the goddamn mission.
• Vindicated by History:
  • While it was already positively received during its release, it was dismissed by a lot of the newcomers drawn in to the series because of Call of Duty 4. As the backlash toward the future oriented Call of Duty intensifies, people look back to this game and see how the game portrays war in a bleak light compared to the almost propagandistic slant of some later games, and the game is often cited to be the second-best entry (behind, of course, the acclaimed Call of Duty 4) in the series according to more recent surveys. The fact it also explores the Pacific Front, a setting almost no games based on the war (much less worthwhile ones) have ever done, helps give it a unique experience that later games like Call of Duty: WWII were criticized for not having.
  • One criticism that did come up on occasion was the absence of a British campaign, which was planned but ultimately cut due to lack of time. That much of the Soviet campaign was a rehash of earlier missions in previous Call of Duty games (notably a sniper duel, which happens late in the Russian campaign of Call of Duty 2, and the storming of the Reichstag, which was also the finale of the first Call of Duty) was also a point of contention. With Call of Duty: WWII having nothing but an American campaign, rehashing the exact same D-Day missions as previous games, World at War actually having a Soviet campaign and having the American campaign focus on the Pacific theater both become even more of a breath of fresh air in retrospect.