General Information
As it has become a running gag in my introduction paragraphs, in my infinite wisdom I decided to play the PC version, fully knowing it might be difficult to get the game to run on a modern system, I am yet again being stubborn.
And this time… It did show its hand, I lost count on the crashes, to be fair, they happened on the later levels which had a lot going on, some sound problems were common but by no means game breaking, and I could swear the widescreen hack made it more jank than it actually is. I had to use screenshots from randos on the internet, due to how patchwork my solutions were, so do excuse the ones that got a watermark.
Still, I managed to finish the game, and had a lot of fun with it, I did find it quite sad that it isn’t as popular as it deserves to be.
If only I had a mean to present this game to a wider group of people who might be interested in retrogames…
It all started with the Franco-Prussian war of 1870… Oh wait! This isn’t a history article, sorry, my bad.
Its World War 2, surely you don’t need me to tell you anything else about the setting.
Did you pay attention in history class? Surely you must have played a WW2 game in your life, or watched a movie, or whatever.
In this game, get this, you are a pilot of a B24 (technically the gunner, doesn’t matter), who gets shot down by the Luftwaffe, and you are now stuck behind enemy lines, you must make your way all the way back to friendly territory.
Cold, hungry, and exhausted, you will have to go through Germany, Occupied Belgium, and Occupied France, and not only having to deal with the Germans in front of you, you also have to watch your back, as a very persistent SS Officer is right behind you.
The game is very loosely based on true events, after all, pilots did get shot down behind enemy lines, some became POWs, others managed to trek all the way back, still, the game takes a lot of liberties.
The game goes for a semi-realistic cartoony art-style, the human models have their charm, but as 3D models go, they haven’t aged that well. It is impressive that they actually went out of their way to make different uniforms for the Germans, like SS uniforms, Winter uniforms, Kriegsmarine uniforms, etc. Even for your own character, in the levels in which you wear a disguise, as well as a very decent amount of variety for civilian models, and, even small details, like your character growing a beard as the game progresses.
Although, I cannot unsee that the main character looks a lot like human Shrek.
For the cutscenes, at the start of each level, they are presented as a comic book, and, they look quite good, a bit silly at times due to the expressions, but, I do say that the ones near the end were clearly phoned in, specially with the repetition of panels which stuck out like a sore thumb when compared to the awesome work they did for the cutscenses in previous levels. There is no voice acting in the comic book ones (besides one exception).
There are also some in-engine cutscenes, but all they serve is to give you hints on were to go, or to show you stuff that you did, or to warn you of trouble.
The voice acting is decent, it does the job and didn’t make me cringe, the protagonist likes to voice his thoughts out loud from time to time, his voice is ok, and you will be hearing a lot of chatter in German, so don’t forget to turn on subtitles.
The environments are varied, I’d say my favorite ones, are the ones in which you have to go through towns or military bases, which have a lot going on, and a very good amount of detail, for wilderness maps on the other hand… I mean, can’t fault them for not adding much, its the countryside during a war, they feel empty, and I guess that’s the point, but, after going through the more detailed maps, I just wanted more of that, thankfully when there is a small cabin, town, camp, or base, they do make them as detailed as before. Do be careful, as they did manage to recreate whiteout quite effectively, and you can get lost in some of the later snow maps.
For the most part, the music goes for atmospheric themes to build tension or make you anxious as you do risky things, only becoming more active when you are found and have to either shoot your way out, or escape pursuit, there isn’t much variation on the tracklist, but what it does with the limited selection is pretty good.
First and foremost, this is mainly a stealth game, its simple and elegant, avoid line of sight, and be careful about the sound of your footsteps, then there are some extra little things, like having the ability to tap on walls to lure enemies towards you with the sound, or to leave things in their line of sight as bait, being able to crawl under trucks either to hide or use as shortcut, you can also peek through doors before opening them.
The takedown move is beautifully simple, walk behind enemies, attack when the prompt appears, mash the button to strangle them faster, you can also drag the bodies, funnily enough however, if an enemy finds a body, they just patrol around it, instead of raising the alarm or anything like that.
Be careful with civilians however, if they see you, they will rat you out to a nearby soldier, you can’t use the takedown on the civvies, so be mindful of that.
Elite enemies, are more observant, and they can both see your from farther away, as well as grow suspicious faster, they are easy to spot, thanks to their pitch black uniforms.
Levels are open enough to give you a variety of ways in which you can approach each situation, if you see a road block, look around for an alternate path, there are always multiple solutions to whatever bottleneck you may encounter, the levels are actually small, but thanks to the tension and excellent design, they feel bigger than they are, but, if you know them, you can quickly breeze through them, it is a shame, that the only thing your character can climb, is a ladder.
The Duality of Man.
In the disguise levels, all you have to do is keep a low profile, don’t run, and avoid officers (they can see through your disguise), if you get found once, you will have to move like you do normally, although these levels have a higher enemy count.
You aren’t unarmed however, you start the game with a Colt 1911, which your character knows how to use, but you have a very limited amount of ammo for it, so use it wisely, cause you will have to ditch it at one point or another.
For guns, you will have to make do with Wehrmacht equipment, which your character doesn’t know how to use, for pistols you got the Walther P38 for which you can find a silencer later, for up close and personal you got the MP40 which you can replace with a StG 44 later on, and for long range, you got a Gewehr 41 for which you can find a scope later.
Do be careful however, as you go down very fast.
But, do be mindful of what you pick up, cause you got a limited amount of carry weight, sure its great to have an arsenal for when you need it, but, do you have enough space for ammo? Do you have space for the level critical item you need to proceed? Do you have space for emergency food? Do you have space for a medkit? The carry weight alone is a very good addition to stop the player from being too overpowered. Each item has a very nice 3D model, and some can be combined.
Then, there is the most important feature of the game, the stamina bar, you will be constantly loosing that bar, if it gets too low, it caps the maximum amount you can heal with a medkit, but, if it goes to 0, you slowly grow weaker and weaker, until dead takes you.
In order to recover that stamina, you either warm yourself up near a fire, or eat some food, remember, food has weight and you must decide if its critical enough to take with you instead of something else.
The bar decreases faster when you are exposed to the elements, like walking through a river, or walking outside while its raining/snowing, it goes slower when you are inside a building, but you are rarely inside a building.
There is an item which makes stamina decrease slower (as well as an item that reduces damage) but its temporary, and it lasts so little, its mostly inconsequential.
Adding to the openness of levels, each level has 3 collectible little planes, as well as having a side objective, which usually revolves around sabotaging the German war effort through the best of your abilities, it can range from silly things, like destroying Hitler’s new car, to big things, like spoiling the food rations of The Siegfried Line.
But, why would you go out of your way to do that?
Either bro is cheating, or its his 50th NG+
You see, at the end of each level, you earn a certain amount of exp, which allows you to upgrade your skills, you can make your character better with weapons, or make him takedown enemies faster, make less noise when moving, getting more carry weight, having more health, having more stamina, and, having medkits heal more.
If you complete the side objective, you earn more exp, and for each little collectible you find, you earn a very nice amount of exp.
The leveling system, can make you a true force to be reckoned with, like being able to instantly takedown enemies, or be able to run silently, I do advice, that you prioritize max stamina and carry weight, but the other upgrades aren’t too shabby either.
Also, get this, the level will actually tell you when its going to finish, just so you can go back and look for collectibles, or do the side missions, if you want to, although, some set pieces won't allow you to go back.
There is even NG+ for you to have fun with your broken character, its quite cathartic to be honest.
This game, although a little rough around the edges, is a very fun experience.
The biggest standout, have to be how open the levels are, although they do have linear sections, the way you approach them is entirely up to you, do you want to take your time and observe patrol routes? You can, do you want to YOLO it? You can, do you want to take the extra risk for the collectibles/side mission? Up to you.
There are also a few set pieces, with you having to run from an enemy battalion, or having to run from cover to cover while avoiding being shot by a plane, all of which are great.
The fact you can only save at the end of the level, ramps up the tension, and makes you play even more cautiously the more you linger in the level.
There is some slight humor mixed in, with your character sometimes saying something witty, or doing something petty to the Germans, it isn’t much, but it did make me chuckle as I was playing.
I did get annoyed sometimes, when an enemy was able to see me with the corner of their eye, quickly ending up with me cosplaying as swiss cheese.
I quite enjoyed the attention to detail they had with the models, as well as the urban and military environments, and, the comic book cutscenes were always very fun.
All in all, I hope this review gave you enough of a motivation to check out this fairly unknown amazing game.
