This is, quite simply, the best WWII shooter I have played. It is a squad-based tactical shooter that can be played in either first person or third person. The player does not play as a certain soldier, but can control any squad member at any time. The squad consists of four members of the SAS, the four being chosen from a pool of about forty at the start of each campaign. Each soldier is rated for health, strength, endurance, shooting, stealth, first aid and lock-picking (the latter is relatively useless as there are few instances where this skill is needed). At the start of each campaign, you choose your squad and outfit them with the required weapons and equipment. This can be done be letting the computer choose for you; by designating a soldier as sniper, rifleman, heavy gunner etc; or by selecting all the weapons and equipment yourself. The campaigns are divided into missions, with some campaigns being shorter than others. Missions are varied and some examples include infiltrating an underground complex to photograph documents, defending an oasis, capturing a bunker on top of a hill and planting mines on a ship’s hull. There are often additional objectives that can be completed during the mission. Should a soldier be killed, he will be unavailable for the remainder of the game and a new soldier cannot be selected until the start of the next campaign. Mission completion will lead to all squad members receiving a slight boost to their stats and some may even be promoted and awarded medals so it pays to keep your squad alive. The locations are varied too – ranging from the snowy wastes of Antarctica to the heat of the African desert to the humid jungles of Burma and to the rocky Alps of Austria. A squad-based shooter succeeds or fails by the AI of the player’s squad. There are some bugs with the AI, most noticeably with its pathfinding. Once I gave an order for my squad to move to a certain location and when I got there I noticed that two members had not. I backtracked and found them trying to run through a wall. However, pathfinding problems are very rare and I encountered no other bugs regarding the AI. In fact the squad are very good – they alert you to the presence of enemies and will often have killed the enemy before you have even sighted them. They can be relied upon to defend both themselves and the character you are controlling. The game includes a tactical map which is activated by pressing space. This can be used to plan complex manoeuvres (by the setting of waypoints), set ambushes and to issue specific orders. It also pauses the action allowing you to assess any threats and plan your strategy. The camera can also be zoomed and rotated to observe enemy positions. Gameplay continues either by quitting the tactical map or choosing to run the tactical map in real time. The gameplay is very good and non-linear. The maps are open, allowing objectives to be achieved in any order and most levels allow different methods of achieving those objectives. For example, when photographing the documents in the underground complex (a mission encountered early in the game), there are two ways of completing the mission – run and gun (kill every solider in the level including those who respond to the inevitable alarm) or by stealth (disguised in the uniform of a German). Stealth is not the main focus of the game, but it does play an important part in the gameplay. Soldiers can, as mentioned above, disguise themselves as enemies. Silenced weapons such as the De Lisle CC, silenced Sten and knives are available at the start of each campaign. Corpses can be picked up and hidden. Under each soldier’s portrait, there is the distance at which an enemy can spot the character. This distance is influenced by, not only the soldier’s skill in stealth, but also by position (prone, crouch, upright) and movement speed (slow walk, walk, run and sprint (the latter can only be used in short bursts as it reduces the soldier’s stamina which is governed by endurance)). The game controls are not the standard set-up for shooters. The left mouse button is fire and the right is the action button. The arrow keys control movement and the right Ctrl and Shift are crouch and prone respectively. Pressing End will result in looking through the weapon’s iron sights. Enter is reload, bracket keys are to change weapons, J is jump and Home is climb. Nearly every key on the keyboard performs some function (some of them relate to the tactical map or multiplayer). As you can see, the controls will take some getting used to or will need to be re-mapped. I adjusted to them and have had no problems using them. This is because they are conveniently located next to the number pad which is used to issue all squad commands. The commands are given as a series of numbers, for example the command 011 will tell all soldiers to follow your character (0 orders all soldiers, 1 selects the movement sub-menu for which 1 is the command “follow me”.) The commands are comprehensive and include advance, move there, hold position, fire at will, hold fire, fire on my lead etc. Most commands can be issued either verbally or silently. Some commands (lay explosives, open and clear etc) are context sensitive and will only appear for certain objects. Each soldier can only carry two weapons - one in their hands and one on their shoulder. A knife, pistol, ammo and health pack can be stored on the soldier’s belt, but space is limited. A backpack can be added to carry more equipment such as extra ammo, mines, and explosives, but again space is limited. In addition, each soldier can only carry a certain weight of equipment, determined by the character’s strength. There is much to admire about this game including little details like being able to pick up every weapon dropped by the enemy; being able to loot enemy bodies; being able to move every corpse; enemies who speak in their native language (if the game wishes you to know what they are saying then it will provide subtitles); blood appearing on the uniforms and faces of squad members who have been injured; enemies who surrender and the ability to drive every vehicle. The game also deserves credit for its comprehensive manual. Unlike most shooters, especially recent ones, the manual contains a wealth of information including profiles for all the weapons, a brief history of the SAS and several pages of tactical advice. This game is vastly underrated and stands neglected in the shadow of better known, but not necessarily better games. If you love WWII games or shooters in general then I highly recommend this game.
Three years after the release of H&D2 this is still my favourite WWII shooter. I remember one afternoon in a game shop, having a talk with this young kid (I'm 40+), who asked me about my experience with both Call of ... Read Full Review
So normally i try and wait until im done with a game or ive gone through the bulk of it. Ive played through the campaign on easy and impart way through on medium. I fully intend to run back through on the harder diffic... Read Full Review
