When setting out at the
beginning, I didn’t know why a friend had lent me this game (or, in
fact, lent me someone else’s copy...!) – this isn’t the kind of game I
play. I don’t like macho war games. I’ve never played Call of Duty or Medal
of Honor or any of their ilk. I just don’t engage with the characters or
find them fun. So what was I doing here?
About halfway through, I got
it. This is a military video game that plays with the concept of military video
games. I’d expressed admiration for Bioshock and how it played with free
will and being impelled to do something because that’s the only way to continue
a game, and something similar happens here. But the way this game does it is
incredibly irritating, frustrating and smug. First, it pretends you actually have
a choice, leading me to waste far too much time attempting an impossible
different choice for Walker . But
secondly, after it becomes completely foregrounded that you’re playing a game
whose main character made the wrong choice and backed the psycho who decided
the best course of action was to kill everyone, the game begins beating you
over the head with it to a ridiculous degree. ‘Do you feel like a hero yet?’ it
asks you in the loading screen, smugness dripping from the words. ‘If you were
a better person you wouldn’t be here.’ The only way to win at this game is not
to play it. Which is absurd, because having made a purchase (or borrowing from
someone who has!) the last thing I want is for game writers to start taunting
me for engaging with their product.
This isn’t dark subversion of
expectations. I don’t think I’d feel it to be even had I been a big fan of
these games anyway. I don’t feel I need a morality lesson from a game, on how I
need to stop to think whether killing men made of polygons is right, even if
they’re meant to be MURRICANS. I don’t feel I need to feel terrible about
having played through a pre-set scenario just because it turns out destructive.
When Bioshock did it, I was amused because while I felt manipulated, it
was a clever twist and once revealed, it was left to one side. Here, I felt
manipulated but it was signposted far too heavily (‘There’s always a choice!’)
and once it was revealed I was beaten over the head with it for the rest of the
game.
And that’s not even mentioning
how completely ridiculous it is that Walker
has been hallucinating all the way through.
The story is a pretty snappy
one. Three elite soldiers are sent to look for survivors in Dubai
after it is devastated by massive sandstorms, a previous entire battalion sent
there having vanished. When they arrive, they find that this battalion has
taken over the remains of the city, apparently following a coup – and the CIA
are now in conflict with them. After having to fight for their lives, Captain Walker
and his two men Lt. Walker and Staff Sgt Lugo decide they need to take down
this dug-in militia. Which, as I’ve already spoiled, turns out to be incredibly
destructive.
The story overall isn’t
terrible, other than the smugness towards the end – but I was also made to
cringe a lot by how the whole thing is supposed to be a tribute to Heart of Darkness, culminating slightly embarrassingly in the Kurtz substitute being
called ‘Konrad’. While darker than many such games, of course, you get to do
all sorts of fun things like fire a minigun from a helicopter, shoot everything
from RPGs to shotguns and zipline between huge Dubai
skyscrapers.
Graphically, it is also good,
with locations lovingly rendered. Unfortunately, the characters themselves are
a little lacking in this department, especially in the way they move, which is
clunky.
All the game’s flaws could
have been forgiven if it were really good. If it had been solid fun to play,
that would have come first. Unfortunately, it’s pretty terrible. The very
basics are fine – the general aiming and shooting is good, the variety of
weapons is admirable and the convenient way the terrain always gives you
somewhere to hide is good. Unfortunately, there are certain things that ruin
it. First, the awful mechanic for taking cover, which is absolutely crucial. I
played on the hardest setting available at the start, and if you don’t take
cover you die in seconds – and have to suffer looong loading times to respawn,
which is something that definitely shouldn’t happen anyway. Unfortunately, once
you take cover things get incredibly clunky – getting up again to escape from a
grenade takes too long and often you end up facing the wrong way. The prompt to
swap from one piece of cover to another often just doesn’t show up. If you’re
running for cover from a heavy (a rather absurd idea in and of themselves), woe
betide you if you take cover on the side of something, because you won’t be
able to slip around the corner. Other things inexplicably won’t let you take
cover, and still more you can’t shoot over despite how obviously feasible it
is. This, more than anything else, made the game incredibly frustrating.
Several mandatory scenarios
are also ridiculously tricky. There was one part where I had to shoot out big
windows, and it seemed to take several minutes to do it. At another point, you’re
chased by a helicopter and survival is pure luck.
I desperately wanted the game
to end 2-3 hours before it did. But I was damned if I was gonna quit before
finishing.
