After playing cawwadoody I had found a game that I enjoyed and thought I'd spread my wings a little so, WaW was logically the next step in my choosing (cawwadoody MW2 not yet released...)
The game is to say the least a repetitive and unrewarding experience, visually quite nice, but lacks the 'soul' required. I feel utterly detached from the characters and even more blasé about any non-main character, which I think is a damnable shame, the game is portraying some of the darkest moments in human history and I would hope that it brings forward some feeling of humbleness as well as being entertaining (it is after all... a game)
let's cut to the crux of the matter... the A.I and the poorly executed game experience. (yes this review is mostly based around the single player, but in my eyes, all these games play nearly exactly the same as one another in the multi-player)
A.I faults
Non-supportive
I run forward to get to a nice bit of cover hoping my AI pals will provide some level of supporting fire, or perhaps move to positions which will take advantage of my own new vantage... nope, not happening, the stiffly scripted AI will happily duck behind cover and THEN fire and fails to move unless the player has reached a very specific point. This leads to an ever growing amount of meta-game wherein the player is taught not about the fluidity and movement of a WW2 battlefield, but instead that he must reach point X on the current map.
Idiotic
I flank to a position which allows me greater command of the battle, in doing so I hit magical point X (as discussed above...) and my AI pals happily run passed enemies to take up their new positions, the worst example of this being when I turned around to see about half a dozen enemy well behind our line and as my new AI pals were spawning they'd happily run straight passed them and get shot down.
Un-responsive
Its painfully clear that for all their yelling and gun noises, I may as well be utterly alone, I cannot count the number of times I've completed a map in this game in which 95% of the enemy targets were killed by me, this frustrates me on so many levels.. if a game has AI bots I expect them to have some fucking impact on things.
On the higher difficulty levels the friendly AI seems useless to the point that it often becomes a hindrance more than any form of help. I've died more than once when at the edge of cover to take shots I try to move back into cover and Private Dumb-fucker-not-moving stands blankly looking into the distance stopping me from moving backward as I'm peppered with gunfire or.. god forbid... grenades.
Grenades
Every Japanese and Nazi infantryman carries no less than 3000 grenades and can throw with perfect accuracy up to 700 yards 3 or 4 in quick succession with inch perfect target landing. To me one of the most broken parts of the game is this. I enjoy a challenge, really I do, but there is a not so fine line between challenge and just outright WTF often I would find that 6 grenades would land ON my face as I am moving ,completely obscured, behind cover. 2 would push me to 'challenge' my reactions.. 3 would test me further both in my reactions and my ability to quickly assess a safe place to run to but when 4 (and often many more than 4 grenades are landing at my exact position often in literal waves of grenade spam... well Fuck that, its not challenging, its not fun and only adds to the ever frustrating re-spawn.
which leads nicely to my final gripe,
Checkpoints
while I agree such things are needed in a game that plays like this one, whoever decided how to lay out the checkpoints in this game needs to be fired. Too often I found myself at a position in the game thinking, this would be a good checkpoint .. but its not, and on the flip-side I recall one mission where I passed 3 checkpoints in VERY quick succession while I crossed some open ground with no enemy around.
Its fair to point out not every level suffers from these faults, but they are overwhelmingly apparent when they do show up. there were a few occasions where I actually found myself enthralled by the game but not often or long enough that the game was what I'd call enjoyable
Gaming Review summary:
Graphics 4/5
Audio 4/5
Gameplay 2/5
Features 1/5
Weighted Score: 30%
Snooze Rating: There are MUCH better games available, get one of those.
