World War II Combat: Road to Berlin
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| World War II Combat: Road to Berlin | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Direct Action Games |
| Publisher(s) | Groove Games |
| Distributor(s) | Atari |
| Engine | Unreal Engine 2.0 |
| Platform(s) | PC, Xbox |
| Release date | January 24, 2006 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Mature (M) |
| Media | CD |
| System requirements | Pentium III 1Ghz CPU
|
| Input methods | Keyboard, mouse |
World War II Combat: Road to Berlin is a budget-priced first-person shooter developed by Direct Action Games and published by Groove Games. Despite its low-budget price, it has been panned by users and reviewers as having shoddy control, and a rushed, unfinished feel. The game was followed by World War II Combat: Iwo Jima.
Contents |
[edit] Story
World War II Combat: Road to Berlin takes place during the final days of World War II. The Germans have been developing secret long-range rockets (called "Vengeance Weapons") that they could use to attack opposing countries. Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union at the time, wanted to get hold of these rockets in his attempt to dominate the free world. Since the Soviets were the lesser of the two evils at this time of the war, the Soviet Union joined Britain's battle. This meant that the Allies could not battle the Soviets to prevent them from getting hold of the Vengeance Weapons, but rather, they had to race against them to make sure that the weapons did not fall into Stalin's hands. Players take control of Stephen Moore, an officer of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), a precursor to the CIA. The events that take place in this game are invented, baring in mind that this storyline is completely fictitious and the "weapons," if any, truly did fall into Soviet hands.
[edit] Criticism
Reviewers have dismissed World War II Combat: Road to Berlin as being one of the worst games to be released on the PC and Xbox. Chunky player movement and aiming made it virtually impossible to get a good aim on enemies, which proved to be frustrating because the enemy soldiers could shoot at the player with pinpoint accuracy even if they were a far distance away from the player. Many other elements also added to the frustration. The player could not pick up any med-kits, and health only recharged at the end of each mission. The game automatically assigns weapons for each mission, which included a pistol, a secondary weapon, and an explosive weapon. However, only one weapon could be put in the secondary slot. This meant that in the sniper missions, since the sniper rifle is your secondary weapon, players could only use the pistol for close combat. However, the worst aspect for many players was that the Allied soldiers would some times shoot at the player instead of the enemy. This was especially irritating because friendly fire could not be turned off.
The game wasn't much better in terms of graphics. Vehicles had no actual animations, and characters looked very blocky, just like much of the environments and level designs in the game. Additionally, while the game does have a multiplayer mode, the network code was extremely glitchy. Constant lag issues caused players to randomly "teleport" back and forth on maps. About half of the time, bullets could pass right through opponents like they weren't there, again due to lag issues. The game also featured offline play with bots, but the bot AI constantly cheated to get 100% accuracy, making offline play just as unplayable as the online play.
The GameSpot and Official Xbox Magazine (June 2006 issue) reviews were extremely negative.[1] GameSpot gave it a 2.0 / 10 (terrible) and Official Xbox Magazine gave it a record low score of 1.0 / 10. This is only the Third game rated a 1.0 / 10.0 by OXM, the other 2 are Pulse Racer & Bad Boys: Miami Takedown.
[edit] Xbox vs. PC
While both versions play exactly the same, the graphics and multiplayer are slightly different. The Xbox version looks bad enough, but the PC version is better because you can change the quality of the graphics and the resolution. Also the multiplayer on the PC version is slightly less glitchy than the Xbox version.
