You'd think being able to mow down an entire regiment of confederate soldiers using a futuristic rifle would be enough to carry any game, but this 7th gen Kusoge just couldnt hack it. The premise and basic silliness of the plot could have been enough, and had this been a 3 hour game I might honestly recommend it. Unfortunately its a 6 hour game and runs out of charm way sooner than that.

The premise is that you are an american soldier at the battle of little bighorn who was declared Missing In Action (M.I.A) which means that the secret future agency that keeps the integrity of the timeline can kidnap you and forcibly conscript you to do their bidding. Essentially you are tasked with keeping time flowing how it was supposed to, but honestly the rules are unclear and it doesnt seem to matter much. Some people absolutely have to be saved, but going ham on the confederate line during the battle of Antietam with an automatic shotgun apparently doesnt alter history all that much.

The voice acting is bad but in a way thats slightly amusing so I'll forgive it. Theres little variety in the gameplay and only two theatres! The American Civil war and the Eastern Front in WW1! (ok and a final thing in ancient rome but still). Also I know this game definitely isnt trying to be historically accurate cause the Germans have british tanks at the battle of tannenberg, but thats like the least of it honestly.

The main problem is that well, the gameplay is shit. The AI is bad and basic, the missions are boring but tolerable at first, the story is padded as fuck and nonsensical. The shooting is dull and the art direction is, well, I guess for a budget xbox 360 game its okay, even if it makes enemies nigh on invisible at times with how they blend in with the background even whilst they are shooting at you (which okay I guess that was the point but gameplay wise its annoying). The difficulty is also pretty dumb, they just make the A.I have stormtrooper tier aiming during the early missions, but when they can actually hit the broadside of a barn from 2 meters away it becomes annoying, cause you just get shot at from every which way and the generous autosave doesnt make it all that much more tolerable. Thats when adorably shitty starts to become "patience testingly shitty".

I suppose I should mention how its a first person shooter that completely takes any sort of solemnity or sense of somber reflection on the titular dark days of two of the most bloody conflicts of modern western history. I dont usually let that bother me cause honestly these games are so dumb, but it does start to slighlty affect me, especially during the tannenberg sections mowing down waves and waves of german soldiers as if they were paper targets rather than thinking, feeling humans sent to die in a horrible war. Even in the civil war sections it starts to feel numbing to kill so many people even if they were fighting for the cause of slavery, consciously or not. Idk If I can really add anything insightful about it all it just kinda makes me a bit sad.

I wish I could say this game was enjoyably crappy but it just goes to show how hard it is for videogames to be "so bad its good" due to the nature of having to personally push through it. I didnt finish the game btw, It just annoyed me a bit too much to forgive everything else so I dropped it. Whatever

Reviewed on Mar 31, 2023


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