This is the game that started Call of Duty franchises. During this time in gaming, Call of Duty was known for great single player experiences that is like being in an action movie. So many WTF moments and suspenseful moments, like trying to sneak behind an army while they are inches next to you. The controls and shooting was fun and semi-realistic. This was also the first game that started COD as a multiplayer franchise. I used to recommend this game to war FPS fans that love a good campaign, but it's so difficult to play it now on it's current platform. The current platform requires a ton of content to be installed even to play the campaign (need to install multiplayer files for some reason and it's not clear it's required) and more confusing that it handles all the call of duty games for some reason. Need to launch 3 different programs to get into the campaign (COD platform -> COD 2 menu -> COD 2 campaign). The current platform also designed for mainly multiplayer, the campaign is treated as a second class citizen: buggy and random crashes with no updates to fix in years. My old DVD of the original game is more stable, although the graphics are dated.
I have great memories of the original release of this game and would love to replay it without the bloat of the current platform. I'm pretty sure it'll be impossible or extremely difficult to restore this game. If GOG could do it, it would show players what an amazing single player franchise the Call of Duty series was and could be: engaging storylines, suspenseful action, fun and responsive FPS.