Recent reviews by Partizan

Well then, I do not often write reviews, but I thought that I needed to actually write my honest first thoughts down about this game. I wish that there wasn't only Yes or No for recommendation because I am sort of in the middle of the road.

I completed the campaign in roughly four hours, which is sort of concerning that I paid over $20 for this game. Assuming that I don't run through the campaign again, that breaks it down for $5 per hour of gameplay, um... yikes.

Keep in mind, I am aware that the studio that made this game is incredibly small, and for what they've made I applaud them for it. I did run into a bug where I accidentally left the combat area just before the trench defense on mission one, and got frozen on the checkpoint screen, but I didn't run into any other major bugs for the rest of the game.

The game starts with the Battle of Mokra, one of the few Polish victories during the September Campaign and then progresses the fighting in Warsaw, culminating in a final stand against the Germans in the last days of the Battle of Hel on the coast near Gdynia. You play as Private Piotr Kowalski, who starts off the game apart of the Polish 7th Infantry Division (I... think), and take on a number of roles as the Polish Army desperately tries to hold off the German offensive, such as Infantryman, Tank Crewman, Bomber Crew, and Detective (bear with me).

This is My Opinion, you are welcome to disagree with it.

CONS:

- The Dialogue: I played this game in English, and my God the English dialogue in this game is terrible. Some bits are clearly in the studio and almost none of it sounds like it's in the world itself and that is very off putting. Credit to the voice actors, they tried. Perhaps it is better in the original Polish, but I have not checked.

- The AI: The AI in this game are pretty brutal, both friendly AI and German AI are incredibly dumb. Nobody even tries to run from Grenades, and will often just stand out in the open waiting to get shot. AI actually reloading is hit-or-miss, with Germans with MP-28s reloading rather regularly but Germans with MP-38s firing infinite magazines directly at your position of cover, making fighting from that position very frustrating.

- The Tank Mission: ♥♥♥♥. This. Mission. In the first part, you control a TKS Tankette. Not bad unto itself until you get to a swamp, where the tank is liable to slide off into the water even if one can follow the path completely perfectly. If you fail, you have to do it -all over again-. The controls are awful, it handles like it's on ice nearly the entire time. Firing the gun while moving will also spin you around uncontrollably. The second part of the mission features the 7TP light tank and... it's honestly fine up until you reach the airfield. There is a lot of smoke and you can't see, but the AI can still laser beam your tank through the smoke while you have to fire blindly, I didn't die on this part but I can see where people can get frustrated with it if they do die there.

- Cole Phelps - Warsaw PD: This Mission takes place during one of the lulls in the fighting around Castle Square in Warsaw. You find a Polish soldier and a shady civilian arguing about something, with the civilian walking away in frustration. You go over to said civilian who asks questions, to which you reiterate around five times that you are new and dont know. You'd think that this would be straight forward, except that you don't actually turn this Spy in. What makes this a Con is the fact that your Officer is not marked on your HUD -anywhere-, you're supposed to -find- him in a gigantic square where there are at least five other Officers. I was walking around, lost, for nearly twenty minutes until I found the right one.

Somewhere in the Middle

= Gunplay / Sound: Sometimes the gunplay in this game can be very frustrating, the game claims that the selection of where you hit the target matters in terms of damage (and that is, mostly, true). However, in my experience the only weapons with any consistancy are the bolt-action rifles, and even then I've had the AI tank headshots. Iron sights are a requirement. Hit detection is also hit or miss. When it doesn't work, it sucks, however when it does work the guns can be very satisfying to use. The sound is also amazing, all of the guns and ambient gunfire/noises sound very powerful and appropriate for the guns that you use, even the pistols sound great (even though they are very nearly useless). Only problem I really have with the sound is that once the music just randomly cut off, other than that the music is great for the atmosphere of the game.

= Movement: The inability to go prone is slightly annoying, but I'm used to it in games like Battlefield Bad Company 2, so it's not really a negative. Only real complaint I have about this is that there is a slight delay from when you can switch stance, making it hard to poke above cover and shoot without losing 25% of your health, but it never really got to a point of "unplayable".

= Weapons: I did not pick up the optional DLC weapons for this game. The German revolving shotgun, which just sucks, it feels like a worse semi-automatic rifle and not like a shotgun. Other than that, I just wish there was a little more variety in terms of the selection. The Grenades are very useful, they are sparse (which I liked because it made me not rely on them as much). The mounted/vehicle weapons are sort of unreliable, and require a lot of concentrated fire to kill Infantry (not having a problem with aircraft or tanks, strangely).

PROS:

+ Setting: Besides Enemy Front, most of which covers the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, there are very few modern games that take on the Polish perspective of WW2 in the FPS genre. In this regard, I love this game for bringing us a whole new look of the war. It is told by an... "ordinary" Polish soldier who is not a member of some elite Special Forces unit, or (in Enemy Front's case) a westerner who joins the Poles.

+ Authenticity: It takes some creative liberties in the name of making the game enjoyable, but everything looks like it is supposed to be there and is period accurate. The uniforms of both sides, particularly the Polish ones, look great. It definitely feels like you're a Polish soldier fighting for your life and country's freedom.

+ Arcade Feel: If you want a heavily realistic, gritty game, this isn't it Chief. If you want some simple mindless fun while shooting Nazis in a setting very rarely touched by western media, then by all means.

+ Graphics: This game, even in medium settings (which were default for me even though my PC is decent), looks great for a game made by an indie developer. It doesn't have the same fidelity as most AAA games, or even some of the other indie games that have popped up in recent years, but it is certainly not a bad looking game.

Final Thoughts

I was in a discord call through almost the entirety of this game, and my friends asked me how the game was, at the time I said I was undecided. And honestly I am still not 100% sure as I write this, I put a positive review because I, personally, had more fun in this game than not and a "Unsure" option isn't available with Steam. I would rate this game around 6.5 out of 10 based on my experiences. If you are interested in the setting and don't mind some of it's janky (and at times frustrating) arcady mechanics then this game could be for you. I would suggest maybe waiting for it to go down in price, since the campaign is only four hours. Most of the problems I have with it are fixable, so maybe after a few patches I will make a second opinion on it.

There is also a Penguins of Madagascar reference with the achievement "Kowalski, progress report", which definitely gets a thumbs up from me.

Poland is not yet lost.

C'mon, it's a Elder Scrolls Game. Of course you should buy it.