Uber Soldier

admin · Rich Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Posts: 249 Location: Teesside

Not the most adventurous theme to go for, it's 1940's WWII, and it's an FPS!! quite imaginitive!

Though it's nothing like the COD's and MOHAA's it's more reminicent of Wolfenstien, in the way that it's centered around the SS and their experiments.

Storyline: Your a dead German soldier and like a bunch of other soldiers you have been re-animated back to life to follow the orders of the first person who talks to you. However during a raid by Americans you take the order from Maria your first contact. So now your fighting along side the Americans. As if you'd get to be German and kill yanks, heh not a chance!

Anyway throughout the game your battling against Germans and Nazis whist tracking down the headbase to where all these Uber Soldiers are being created so you can close this invention down.

The game starts with you in a psyhchiatric ward being rescued by Maria, once you fight all the guards and nutters let loose Maria introduces you to her team. From then on your doing missions throughout the game either unaided or meeting up with a group to help them out untill they give you orders to go on your way for more solo missions.

So really it's a solo FPS with bits of team help every now and then like there was in Quake 4.

The levels vary from madhouse, warehouses, hospitals, prison, a submarine, base complexes, bunkers, sewers etc etc. Lot of the usual but it's quite varied and away from battle zones often seen in CODs or MOHAAs.

Graphics: Levels and character modelling very nice, lots bump map texturing and lighting effects used on good looking detailed models. Characters all detailed full with equipment and textured well done, characters have rag doll effects when die and equipment spills out all over the floor when shot, not neccessarily real looking as why would all your tools and gadgets immiediently come off because you fell to the floor? But it's a handy indication to know they are dead, as if you dont shoot them enough after one fall to the floor they get back up for more.

This game has quite a few explosions going on, barrels and Gas canistors litter the levels quite a bt for handy explosions to kill germans positioned nearby, Germans never fail to use explosive items for cover Very Happy

All fire effects look pretty good, not as good as FEAR's but nice use of Corona distortion effect. Just like FEAR and in Xbox's Black you get a lot of cloud dust kicking up fom the walls and floor when the gunfire gets hectic, it looks good but not as good or as practical as FEAR's. I didn't get the impressions it could be used as cover like you can in FEAR, infact it didn't, I couldn't see them but they could still shoot me through it all, so it's a case of find cover till dust settles, or leg it through.

Enemy AI: I played the game on 'normal' difficulty, although I found the game over all too easy. There was good AI and 'iffy' moments, for some reason a german would walk out a door, see you, then turn around walk back two steps then turn around to face you before shooing, which gave u ample time to shoot them in the back Confused

But othertimes if they saw you they would run at you shooting or use melee attack if close up. They are good in the sense they won't just stand there (unless behind a bunker with a turret machine gun), they will charge firing, and throwing a lot of grenades, like yourself you can throw grenades a long distance and a lot of time you will find yourself just blowing up because they throw that many, and the 'clink clink' sound is quite quiet. Even though they take a right amount of shots to die each one is usually equiped with a 10 point health pack when they die, and because of the ample amount of health lieing about as well, that's what makes the game a bit too easy.

Sound: Good soundtrack music, sounds like Ramnstien/Korn on menu sections, in the game there's some sort of German chant that plays now and then, that's pretty good too though never lasts that long. Think Nazi Enigma.

Where as the music is good, the speech is awful! Bad acting is one thing, but all the Germans speak in English, ok fair enough, but there's no German accent, nope it's full on American, why Confused

Surely they could even have added a fake 'Allo Allo' attempt!

In game effects sounds ok, guns are fine, explosions and grenades defintely lack a punch, they sound too feeble, some levels have planes crashing down around you, you'd expect a screen effect to shake and a huge explosion to go off too, but nope barely any sound and no disortion of screen, again a dramatic effect ruined. When you get injured badly you get that dazed effect like you see in SWAT 4 when you see a flash grenade by accident, so it's not like they couldn't have used this effect for the planes crashing next to you. shame.

Overall: Well it's a fast runnng FPS with a desent array of weapons, so the game is a lot of fun, the graphics are really good and well animated so overall it's a good game, the final level of 'kill the big Uber Soldier' lacks imagination as how many times is the last level a big boss?? Anyway a minor point, it's a fun no thinking FPS with a few downsides, mainly the American accents on the Germans, but that's only ruined mainly in the cut scenes.

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