We suppose it's inevitable that World War II will bring out the blood-lust in game designers. Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Battlefield 1942 et al have demonstrated that there's no adrenaline buzz like taking on the Bosch in narrow streets or on the beaches. And if you combine the supposed Nazi 'hidden agenda' of experimentation with the occult and trying to engineer the perfect soldier, then you have all the elements for fast and furious first-person shooters.

Ubersoldier follows in the tradition of Return From Castle Wolfenstein and the more recent F.E.A.R. by putting dastardly scientists at the centre of the drama. You play Karl Stolz, a German officer who was killed leading a Wehrmacht patrol against partisan forces and is then 're-programmed' to make use of hidden supernatural powers. Unfortunately his reconditioning includes the command that he has to obey the orders of the first person he meets after 'waking up' and that proves to be a female enemy combatant.

Aware of the changes that have taken place within him, Karl is now hell-bent on destroying his former masters and wrecking the Ubersoldier programme. He has a mixture of conventional and unconventional weapons to help him, including sub-machineguns, pistols, grenades, knives and so on, plus a unique weapon called a temporal shield. This is a blue coloured force field which captures bullets like flypaper and then allows you to hurl them back at the enemy that fired them.

This is particularly useful if you're trapped in an area with multiple enemies but it's time-controlled so you have to be quick in your responses. The temporal shield can be recharged if you achieve three head-shots in succession, and three consecutive melée kills will grant the power of Rage, raising the maximum hit points of your hero.

There's a slight variation with the gameplay in later levels when you have the opportunity to man a submarine and take out enemy ships and planes, and other partisan colleagues will join you for a few missions (even though they have a habit of getting killed rapidly).

The graphics for this game are impressive, with a real gritty feel and plenty of use of dark shadows and brooding atmosphere. But while the implementation of 'ragdoll' physics means plenty of Nazis are sent spectacularly spinning through space when shot or blown up, the first two levels are severely bug-ridden to the point where you'll want to throw your computer at the wall.

The acting dialogue is atrocious and the Artificial Intelligence is variable at best and plain stupid at worst, with foes sometimes diving for cover and at other times inviting you to shoot them. Some levels can be easily cleared by simply using your temporal shield and in others you are frustratingly blown up with grenades with monotonous regularity. If only more time had been spent trying to maintain some form of consistency, this would have been a much better game.

Verdict
A game with great potential that looks good and has one new eye-opening weapon, but is plagued by bugs, bad dialogue and inconsistent AI. All of which will probably prove too counter-productive for serious first-person shooter fans.

Company: CDV

Tags: world war ii nazism artificial intelligence call of duty history twentieth century wars and conflicts games