What was immediately apparent upon starting my hands-on demo was that developers City Interactive are keen on taking the action to areas of the war we haven't seen much of up to this point. Sure, you start off in occupied France rescuing a female resistance officer (I think she was genuinely wearing a beret. And possibly drinking wine. And smoking a cigarette), but soon enough you're stomping around Poland at the height of German occupation, or sneaking through the fjords and mountains of Norway. This globe-hopping action is powered by the CryEngine 3, which ensures that there's a variety of different environments that all look interesting and unique. Enemy Front neatly side-steps the issue, common to many WWII games, of every level being a smudge of browns and greys. It's all very pretty, and it's nice to visit some new locations.
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| Another foolish German patrol underestimates the combat skill of the USA's elite journalistic division |
All this is slightly undermined by the decision to make the lead character a boring American journalist with a comedy French photographer sidekick. Quite apart from wondering why a civilian who should be reporting on the horrors of war suddenly whips out a pistol and starts blowing the kneecaps off of unfortunate German soldiers, the American perspective on the war has been pretty heavily covered. Especially coming from a Polish studio who I would have thought would relish the chance to tell the story of their country's pretty remarkable actions during the war. There's one mission set in a Warsaw hospital which opens with our chisel-jawed all-American hero making a defiant broadcast from the war-zone, and I was thinking... why is he the one doing that? I half expected the camera to cut back to several confused and disgruntled Polish soldiers wondering who the hell this Yank is hogging the radio set.
I don't know. I guess the nationality of the floating head holding the gun doesn't really matter when you're in the midst of a decent firefight. It's not as if Enemy Front is trying to tell a human story about the cost of war. Axis soldiers spend half their time machine-gunning French peasants to death against a barn door, and the other half receiving an amateur tracheotomy from some heroic resistance fighter's rusty combat knife. Baddies are bad, goodies are good. It's more Captain America than Band of Brothers.
And that's fine. You'll come for the combat, and Enemy Front does a pretty good job here. Weapons are chunky and satisfying to use, with more variety than most WWII shooters. Unique examples include the one-shot Welrod Pistol and the DeLisle Carbine, a silenced long-range weapon. Visits to Norway and Poland offer a chance to experiment with other less well-known equipment from the era. It's not going to rock your world, but there's enough variety to the shooting to keep your attention.
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| Ralf's utter inability to provide an interesting soundbite angered the mighty journalist |
Case in point, levels are typically open enough to encourage a few different approaches. You can go the old run and gun way, blasting everything that moves with an assault rifle, but you usually get the chance to take the high ground and switch to a rifle or sniper rifle. Coming from the team that brought us the Sniper: Ghost Warrior series, it's no surprise that long-range combat has a little more verve than more straightforward tactics. The mechanics aren't quite as detailed, there's no adjusting for wind for example, but there's bullet drop to consider, and some gratifyingly gruesome (at least to a closet sadist like me) slow-mo kill shots that periodically play out.
If you keep an eye out you can also use certain areas of the map to your advantage. During one mission, for example, I had several opportunities to shoot open a gate and send a torrent of heavy tree logs tumbling down the hillside on top of a patrol. There are several areas that allow for similar interaction in each level. They're sign-posted by a glow indicating that they can be destroyed, but it's generally pretty fun to do so nonetheless.
And now the downside. Even a few months away from release there's a general lack of polish. I noticed several glitches and bugs that popped up; wonky ragdoll physics, mission critical characters getting stuck in walls and so on. Nothing I saw was game-breaking, but it was all noticeably lacking the smooth polish that you'd hope for from a game relatively late in the development cycle.
If I have one major concern at the moment regarding the combat, it's that the intelligence of the enemies differed rather wildly. Some encounters worked well, with enemies making good use of available cover and converging on my position from several locations. Other times, they settled for the not particularly effective tactic of hiding behind the nearest crate and obligingly waiting for me to circle around and pop them in the head, or standing stock still in front of me while I charged them with an MP44. Sniper 2 had some pretty major AI issues too, which makes me feel a bit uneasy.
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| “I'm afraid your deadline has passed,” quipped the furious reporter, as he opened fire with his trusty machine-gun |
If the developers can polish up the AI and perhaps remove a few of the bugs (the version I played was still being worked on) then Enemy Front will probably scratch the itch for those looking for a WWII shooter. It's nice to look at, the combat is generally satisfying, and the decision to stage the action in areas of the war that haven't yet been covered in much detail is a smart one. Aside from that the game doesn't really bring anything new to the table, but I can see Enemy Front diverting enough entertainment when it comes out on 10th June, 2014 for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. I'd just recommend holding out for the first round of reviews to make sure those outstanding issues have been fixed.
Most Anticipated Feature/Element: I'm just hoping, fingers firmly crossed, that City Interactive can iron out some of those creases.
