The game was great. I loved the realistic WW2 setting, which was based on historical facts (Raul Wallenberg) - I don't think I've ever seen a concentration camp in a WW2 game before, which was both harrowing but fascinating at the same time - a WW2 game that touches the issue of the holocaust.
I loved the fact that you had to think. I love the fact that this game is HARD. you need to time your actions, you need patience, and patience pays. it's a great sensation, finally getting that deserted kill, that deserted officer's uniform.
I loved the german marches/Jazz/swing music that was played on various missions, however, it's too bad that this was almost the only things the makers invested in to immerse the player in the enviroment.
a few of my gripes with this beautiful game:
- The plot : it was good but it was very lacking. the interrogation sequences were made very nicely and depicted a gritty early-1950's after-the-war soviet reality, however, I do think there was space for much more evolvement and a deepening of the plot.
- Consenquences of missions : the introduction of the missions was very anemic and phlegmatic. sometimes it felt like you're just a robot. i know that with the fact that strogov was a SMERSH operative, he was assigned to many different missions, whether if linked one into each other or not, but some more background on the missions (time, date, introduction scenes) would really contribute to the feeling that you're doing something. another thing would be more Feedback from your actions - say you go in a base, and kill three top officers, and then you just sneak away and leave. you go to your next mission without no word about the consenquences of your latter mission. it makes you feel a bit empty. it would be nice if you could get a glimpse of the german response, maybe in a newspaper article, or just a narrator telling about what happened and what implications your actions had on the german army and on the war.
- Atmosphere : periodical music was very good, but not enough! you have to include conversations between guards. maybe sometimes, frequent calls from the speakers in the bases, random stuff going on. it felt really weird to see a german officer and a german frau (madame) just sitting in a room, not talking, lifelessly. you could make them speak, or just have some ambient german-speaking background sound whenever you go there.
- Violence : I do not like excessive amounts of blood and do not play computer games for such things, but the lack of blood was quite experience-taking for me. i do not ask for Soldier of Fortune gore, but if you would include a bloody bullet-hole wherever we shot the enemy, it could be very nice. also - i've played with the pack that adds swastikas and all the stuff, just couldn't do without it. i understand the necessity of removing these kinds of things (game being sold in deutschland and stuff) but i do not understand the coercing of the policy on all of us. let the gamers choose if they want swastikas and hitler portraits!
- Gameplay : First-person view is a must! sometimes when you're in dense places, it's very hard to aim at the enemies.
it's needed to have places in which the player can hide bodies of foes. hiding them in secluded areas usually works fine, but the addition of shoving them into a box/fridge (a-la-hitman-style) would be a real nice addition.
- Day/Night cycle : I guess i'm taking on a big one here, but in the future games, which i sure do hope will come (and the english version of the moment of truth) - I imagine the possibilty of the players ability to choose if to carry out his mission at daytime or at night, with each having it's cons and pro's. seeing that the guards and base inhabitants have their "Lives", sleeping, switching guard-shifts, eating lunch, attending the morning line-up. the game had some of those, but it was very "scripted". it could be nice if the game focused more also on the aspect of time.
that's all for now.
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