Enemy Front (360)

[Teal]

If you're still hanging on to your 360, and haven't jumped into the next get fray, and haven't gotten tired of WWII era games...I may just have one for you. Enemy Front totally caught me by surprise; I didn't even know it existed until a few weeks ago. I began watching videos of it, and it looked quite a bit different than the garden variety WWII shooters out there. So I bought it last week.

It's different. In a good way.

The game is made by the guys who did the Sniper: Ghost Warrior games. That said, don't go into it expecting a high level of polish or graphical splendor...although neither are bad by any means, but if you've played S:GW games...you know what to expect here in that category. I liked the Sniper games, but they were a little too linear for a game about sniping. Enemy Front mostly solves that with mostly wide open areas to attack how you wish. And that's the other thing: you can snipe, you can go in guns blazing, or...you can attempt to sneak through unnoticed, silently taking out guards, or just trying to slip past them altogether. The latter approach is the hardest...and the most rewarding. The cool thing is that there's no 'mission fail' if you're spotted; you just have to switch tactics. You have a circular meter that begins to fill when you are in an enemy's line of sight, and when it's full...spotted. It makes for some risk/reward moments when you consider attempting to dart from one cover to another. There is a sprint/slide function that is very cool to add to this darting around. Simply press the left stick down to sprint, then tag the B button to slide. You can sneak up on a Nazi and either kill them on the spot, or take them hostage. Taking a hostage does not keep you from getting shot at by his comrades, but it does allow you to walk him to a hidden position in order to kill him silently, and hide the body. The enemy notices bodies, and when they do, they begin looking for you. You can also throw rocks to distract guards, or to get them into position for a capture/kill. The sneaking around is really well done, and is incredibly tense at times.

You'll know it's a Sniper: Ghost Warrior game when you fire the sniper rifle after lining up a good kill shot. The trademark 'bullet cam' kicks in, and provides a satisfying payoff for a good shot (although not as grittingly satisfying as Sniper Elite's anatomy lesson kills...lol).

Online is pretty much what you'd expect; it's not the second coming, but it's not bad, either.

Anyway, I don't know how many (if any) of you guys have continued to opt out of next gen, but if you have, at 40 bucks, this one is a really good bargain. It's set in Warsaw, which is a change of venue and pace in WWII games, and it's well done for what it's trying to do. The SP has been long so far (haven't completed it yet), the missions are varied and lengthy, there are secrets to find...just a good all around game.

[JOZ]

Sounds interesting, but I have such a backlog of games that I don't plan on getting anything for a while.

Count me as one that will not be making the leap to next-gen anytime soon, if at all.