Gold Old Days
You'll need to use precision shots and high explosives to dislodge the Nazi threat
It used to be you couldn't swing a grandpa around in the air like a club without hitting a WW2 game. They were everywhere, in every genre, completely saturating the market like Zombie games and MOBA's do today. By far the most popular was the venerable first person shooter, a trend that transcended subject matter. WW2 shooters gave birth to franchises like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Medal of Honor, to name a few.
Over time fads fade away however, and by the mid 2000's shooters had switched over to more modern conflicts, like the Gulf War of early 90's or the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East of today. The last truly note-worthy WW2 shooter was likely COD: World at War, an incredibly underrated entry into the series that remains one of my favorite COD games of all time.
It's a bit strange then that someone would try to revive this once guaranteed money-maker, but in June of 2014 CI games tried just that with Enemy Front, calling it the "first modern WW2 FPS game". It's modern alright, and it certainly takes place in World War 2, but does it live up to the legacy of the greats, or does it land like a dud?
Different Front
Enemy Front tries to have a cinematic tone, but often falls short
Enemy Front's biggest attempt to try and distance itself from it's progenitors is in it's choice of locales. Rather then replay the tried and true battles like Normandy, the Pacific, or the Eastern Front, EF turns it's sights to the unknown battles of Eastern Europe. You'll flip back and forth between fights in Poland and Norway, with a central focus around the Battle of Warsaw. It's a nice change of pace, but honestly, one 1940's bombed out village looks like every other 1940's bombed out village, regardless of nationality.
The plot sees you in control of Robert Hawkins, an American war correspondent that takes the "war" part of that very seriously, and never heard the phrase "conflict of interests". Rather then just report on the war, Hawkins decides it's more fun gunning down Nazis and blowing up factories, and while I question his journalistic integrity, I understand where he's coming from. It's to bad, then, that his outlet for this destruction happens to be this game.
The plot is... there? It's hard to say really, because there wasn't anything to grab on to. You'll do a level during the Warsaw uprising, then flashback to another story somewhere else, then repeat over and over. There are really only, maybe, five characters, and no villain save for the endless Nazis that stand in your way. It's very similar to the old Medal of Honor games in this way, where the plot only exists to ferry you from battle to battle.
One of the game's many, often hilarious glitches
Pop Guns
There's a lot of detail in the levels, from realistic shattering glass to small items lying around.
Taking place in a different battlefield means using different guns, and EF's armory contains some of the weirdest and rarest weapons from WW2. There are the old classics, like the MP40, Kar. 98, or the Mosin Nagant rifle, but there's also the inclusion of weapons like the incredibly rare De Lisle silenced carbine, or the WZ .28 auto rifle. There's very little noteworthy about these guns, but it's a nice touch and further cements EF's desire to be different.
Unfortunately, while the attention to detail on the guns is nice, how they actually handle is less so. Aiming feels fine mostly, I suspect, thanks to the Cry Engine EF is running off, but the guns don't have any weight to them, and don't feel that fun to shoot. WW2 weapons were forged from wood and steel, made for warfare and loud as hell. Why then do all of my rifles sound and feel like cap guns, and my machine guns feel like a kid's toy? A shooter lives and dies on it's weapons, and the guns on offer in EF just aren't fun to use.
Lost Platoon
Ragdoll physics transcend warfare.
Rather then the old linear levels of FPS's past, EF's levels are wide open and give you the opportunity to sneak around. There are limited stealth tools, and occasionally sneaking can save you from a costly firefight. Or, it might if the stealth wasn't absolutely abysmal. This is not a stealth game, and should never be played as such. Most of the time I immediately abandoned stealth in favor of a proper shoot out because that was more fun and worked better. Enemy AI handle well enough, flanking around and using cover, and stealth felt like a waste of time. There's no leaning option either, something that should be included in a stealth game.
Enemy Front is a confused game, trying so hard to be the WW2 FPS games of yore while also trying so hard to be a completely different game. There are brief moments of nostalgic brilliance hearkening back to Medal of Honor or Call of Duty 2, but these are brief as you slog your way through generic enemies and boring levels. There's no denying the joy of killing Nazi scum by the dozens, but there are better, albeit older, ways of scratching that itch.
Image Sources
http://www.steamunlock.com/uploads/posts/2014-06/1402743094_enemy-front.jpg
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