This game at first presented itself with an earnestness familiar to WW2 media. The game began with a sense of veneration of the real men of the airborne in WW2. There was a constant orchestral score in all the menus and briefing screens to set a mood. There were somber titlecards with quotes from real soldiers of the war. The first fighting of the game was in Italy, during the real life Operation Husky. German and Italian soldiers resisted while I fought them in the streets. It was typical WW2 fare. Americans with Thompsons and Garands working their way through streets against Germans ands Italians with K98Ks and sandbags with MG42s set atop them.
The game played as innumerable WW2 games before it until the end of the first level where I got my taste of the unintentional descent into the surreal this game had in store.
The last objective was to storm a German held building, taking out the garrison and in the process killing four specific officers. I fought my way up alongside the NPC airborne troopers, slowly taking out German hardpoints outside the building until the American troops could advance into the building. They cleared rooms and killed Germans while I did the same on my own path. Eventually the shooting completely stopped, but the level hadn’t ended. I checked, and I had only killed two of the four officers. I didn’t immediately know what had happened, but the answer was soon revealed. All the Germans except for the officers were dead, and it was clear that since they were objectives for the level, the NPCs couldn’t kill them. I entered a room to find American paratroopers standing around, with a German officer cowering in the corner. They were all waiting for me. They weren’t going to finish this. Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong. I went up and quickly finished off the first officer with a Thompson. It was strange being the only audible gunfire, lacking the otherwise seemingly constant sounds of war in the game. I killed the second officer and the level ended. Then the next level briefing began with another simple operational brief. There was no character development or personal plot to add a connective narrative tissue to the treadmill of fighting in different locales.
Playing this game is like being inside someone else’s PTSD. There is an uncannniess to the tone and presentation that makes the whole experience dreamlike.
The missions began more clearly based on real life, but by the level with the drop over Normandy the divergence from reality was becoming more clear as I was sent to assault Germans who were directly defending the beach. I fought them while within sight of American infantry coming ashore.
By the time I was fighting in Operation Market Garden, the Germans were showing up in hoards with Panzerfausts and firing them at infantry. All German tanks were Tiger tanks. At one point I fought and destroyed a roving Tiger tank, only for a cutscene to introduce a second Tiger tank as if it were some ominous boss enemy- despite the fact I had just destroyed one.
Germans later showed up hipfiring MG42s like they’ve come out of Jin-Roh.
I fired back with weapons that are being given mandatory upgrades by the game. My trusty BAR with jungle taped magazines, and my scoped and jungle taped STG44 carried through the later levels.
The further the game went, the more coherence seemed to break. I found myself assaulting a flak tower by landing directly atop it, blowing it up piece by piece. Eventually I had to descend into the basement with was full of red light and steam, looking like Freddy Kruger was waiting for me. Instead it was waves of gas mask wearing, MG42 carrying Germans.
The whole time graphical glitches were causing weapons to flicker in and out of my hands. For some reason moving platforms would flicker to invisibility, forcing me in the later areas of the game to imitate Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade by taking on faith that I could step onto a chasm without falling to my death. At one point in an earlier level, the American planes flying overhead constantly simply stopped in place so I looked up and could hear the droning of their engines, but they were simply paused in flight. Reality was cracking.
It was as if the WW2 veteran whose head I was inside was slowly slipping away, with his last and most vivid memories colliding into eachother as the inevitable darkness that takes away life from us all snuck up on him, and all he could do was make every last bit of glory replay as a comfort.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this game.
