WWII GI | WW2GI.GRP
TNT Team
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| Screenshots c/o Steam (except the map reviews, those are mine) |
Saving Private Ryan was a milestone in cinema, an altogether important film that, regardless of its strengths or weaknesses, changed how we look at war movies. And as video games are forever riding on the coattails of movies, imitations were not far behind. Before Call of Duty, before Medal of Honor even, there was WW2GI. For twenty years, this title by TNT Team, a small group of Finnish gamers (with no relation to Team TNT of Final Doom fame) was the last commercially-released game to use the legendary Build engine, which powered titles like Duke Nukem 3D and Blood.
TNT Team had already cut their teeth on modding for Duke Nukem 3D with the semi-popular Platoon mod (based on the Vietnam War movie of the same name); the planned sequel was picked up by GT Interactive and turned into the commercial game NAM. While that experience did not translate into a great game, it was popular enough (probably due to being sold in Walmart for cheap) to warrant a World War II-themed sequel.
The end result is amateurish at best; aside from several reused Duke 3D assets (how did they not get sued!?) the game is riddled with poor design decisions, ranging from bad level design to just outright infuriating gameplay. The first thing the game does, literally the very first thing, is throw you into the meatgrinder with a recreation of the Omaha Beach landings. You will die. You will die a lot. You will die randomly. You will die for seemingly no reason at all. Welcome to WW2GI.
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| Get ready to see this a lot. |
So you get to listen to your CO yell “what do I look like, a German soldier!?” over and over while you figure out, through trial and error, what you’re supposed to do (use explosions to first destroy some barbed wire, then destroy a wall blocking you from the top of the beach.) In place of armor you get something called “morale,” which changes based on a number of things — Allied soldiers dying, SS troops shooting at you, SS troops dying, healing yourself, and so on. If it drops to zero, that’s it, you’re dead. Speaking of healing yourself, the health system is kind of bullshit too. You can carry two medkits at a time. Using them will heal up to 35 health, but the key thing is that you cannot move. Move, and the healing stops. (You can still look around.) Healing is also slow.
Actually fighting the enemy is an exercise in frustration. While they don’t, as a rule, take a lot to put down — a single burst of Thompson fire will kill a grunt with ease — they can just as easily tear you to shreds, which is reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D’s deadly combat, but far more frustrating. It would almost be fine except for a few issues. Their reaction times are often insane — they’re capping you before you’ve even seen them. Another is that due to the way Duke 3D’s version of the engine works, they’re often invincible until they’ve ‘seen’ you and are activated. This isn’t an issue endemic to Duke 3D’s stock levels, mind you — rather, it’s an issue with the enemy sprites being a tad too large as placed within the map editor, and the game must resize them, which it only does upon aggro. It’s often a problem in custom Duke maps.
Speaking of maps, according to the credits, we can thank Tuoma “Tuco” Korva and Lado “Icebreaker” Crnologar for the level design, but I’ve no way of telling you who did which. I'm not sure it really matters. Maybe three or four of the levels of the first episode are salvageable; the rest are unmitigated shit, especially E1L4. While this is the first-ever WW2 shooter to feature the Omaha beach landings and the Normandy invasion at large, it’s a novelty at best, an exercise in frustration that shows the limits both of the engine and the designers’ talents. While I'm not sure what distinguishes the second episode from the first, it's a significantly better second half, but the problem is, that’s not saying much. It still suffers from issues endemic to the game, like the insane reaction times of the enemy, the massive damage they do to you, and so on. However, the gameplay is much more straightforward for the most part, with no NPCs to babysit, no weird moments of wondering what to do next, just pure Nazi slaughter. Now if only the game didn’t suck.
Ultimately, there’s not much else I can say for this game. It’s a turd. Some of the levels are relatively nice looking, but I’ve also seen much better custom Duke 3D levels from the same time period. The ambient sound effects are sometimes poorly chosen, and the music is dull.
After WW2GI’s release, TNT
Team went on to release a free, downloadable expansion pack called
Platoon Leader, featuring three additional levels with new features. As the title suggests,
this is inexplicably at least partially ’Nam-themed, but one level is set in
World War II’s Pacific theater, and requires you to climb a hill covered in
enemy and… do something. I can’t figure out how to not fail the mission and I
don’t care enough to try. Two of these, inexplicably, are set during the
Vietnam War, a throwback to NAM; the remaining level, however, is set in the pacific theater of world war 2.
The result is that the armory is a mix of WW2 and Vietnam-era weaponry, with
the levels designed in such a way that you won’t receive weapons that don’t
belong in the era you’re playing. Speaking of level design, no clue who did
this one, but I want to punch them.
The first Medal of Honor released in late 1999 to critical acclaim; while it’s little more than a Goldeneye 64 clone with a World War II skin on, it’s still a fine game in its own right. Perhaps the main reason it was successful was because it was running in an engine designed for it. The Build engine is great for games like Duke Nukem 3D or Blood where you have like a million guns and blow up a zillion enemies and it's all ego and explosions. A realistic warfare experience? Not so much. The engine just isn't built for it.
Episode One: D-Day
E1L1: D-Day
Name a more iconic moment in United States military history than Omaha Beach? This recreation of the bloody battle might not be as lethal as the real thing, but it sure is nearly as nightmarish. The game throws you in deep real fast and you’re forced to learn, through trial and error, the basics of the game, all the while random explosions and bullets out of nowhere will cut your gameplay short. You’d think they’d at least give us some basic training… even Medal of Honor: Frontline's depiction of the landings, which I found pretty difficult, was more forgiving than this.
E1L2: Atlantic Wall
Omaha Beach, part 2. You’re alone for this one, facing several dozen enemy troops as you work your way through a complex of shattered bunkers and rail lines. Not much sense to the layout on this one, though cool carnage as a row of parked trucks are annihilated in an artillery explosion – along with all the Nazi goons hiding behind them.
E1L3: Defend
You meet up with some friendlies just in time for a panicked radio message – a squad is pinned down under enemy fire and need help. Working your way through a flooded village and a forest infested with Nazis, you eventually come upon the squad, hiding in some foxholes as a couple dozen enemy mysteriously teleport in by a hedgerow on the far end of the field. Aside from some extra ammo, you also get access to an artillery strike via radio and a mortar launcher. Hold out long enough and a gate will open with reinforcements behind, and the exit beyond.
E1L4: Hunt for the 88s
Jesus Christ. If you managed to get through that first D-Day map without getting too frustrated you may wind up throwing in the towel on this one, an extremely dark night mission in the woods where the enemy can see you but you can’t see them, and they always have insanely good aim. The one thing it has going for it is a pretty cool scripted sequence where you and a squad of guys traverse a bit of forest, exchanging some bad banter – very cool for the build engine! And then they all die in an ambush, leaving you to play Audie Murphy – again.
E1L5: Finding Private McCurkee
First of all: lol. Second of all, this mission is actually almost fun. A ruined little town teeming with enemy, you’ll have an opportunity to use a rifle to pop enemies from a distance, which will be useful as there’s plenty of snipers. A mortar team will make your life hell near the end. It’s fun picking your way through the ruined buildings and finding ways to climb up into otherwise inaccessible rooms.
E1L6: Saving Private McCurkee
Did you like E1L5? How would you like to do it again, only this time in
reverse, in the dark, and with an NPC in tow that you have to babysit –
assuming he doesn’t get his dumb ass stuck in the foxhole right at the
beginning of the level and then you don’t notice he’s done it so you save your
game like a dumbass and now you have to noclip through the gate at the end
because the idiot doesn’t know how to climb?
Yeah. I didn’t like
E1L6.
E1L7: Mop Up
The final mission of the D-Day episode is a mercifully daytime shootout across a semi-detached military complex in which you shoot a bunch of Nazis, blow up some tanks, dodge some artillery fire and, in the end, lay waste to a small, fenced-in compound guarded by SS, who distinguish themselves from regular grunts by their distinctive black uniforms and red Nazi armbands. Just hanging around them lowers your morale; ignoring the fact that the morale system makes no sense, this does amusingly give rise to the idea that the SS are so evil that they can sap you on a psychic level.
I mean, that’s true of Nazis today.
Episode Two: France
E2L1: Hell from Above
A much more sensible first level, this is essentially a sweep-and-clear mission as you work your way (alone, of course) through a cute little village along a river. Lots of wide open space means little cover for you, but it also makes combat a bit of a turkey shoot (especially with auto-aim on.) Oddly you get tons of MP40 ammo – even maxing it out – before you ever actually get the MP40.
E2L2: Seaside Sweep
A quick jaunt through a seaport. Lots of Nazis, and lots of BAR ammo to perforate them with. This would actually be a decent level if not for an issue I ran into that placed two very large wall texture sprites in the map that blocked my view of the final building, forcing me to activate god mode just to be able to approach the place. Bad! Fortunately, some kind soul has provided a fix.
E2L3: Under Fire
Similar to “Defend” from the first episode, the first half of this mission involves you facing off against endlessly respawning waves of Nazis until such time that you’re called to retreat through the village, which is swarming with more goddamn Nazis. Clear your way through it and you’re treated to a grisly scene of SS troops forming a firing squad to execute captured allied prisoners. It definitely feels like a precursor to early Call of Duty. It’s not too bad a level I guess.
E2L4: Paperwork
It’s time to attack an SS-occupied chateau in this quick little mission. It starts off surprisingly easy with a short, linear path that takes you through some countryside. A heavily fortified bridge serves as the main defense of the chateau and every window bristles with guns. Get inside the chateau walls and it’s wall-to-wall SS, draining your morale with every burst of their MP40s and having the infuriating tendency to have your shots (especially your BAR) go right through them.
E2L5: Railroad Typhoon
You’ve been tasked with rescuing a bunch of captured Allied troops who’ve been put on a train, which means storming a trainyard. It’s mostly wide open spaces here, though there is a cool part in a connecting tunnel where you’re checking train cars. The trainyard itself is comparatively vast, and enemy fire comes from all directions. Relatively fun map.
E2L6: A Game of Bridge
Like the name suggests, the key feature of this level is a bridge, currently occupied by a tank and a large contingent of Nazis. To get there you’ll have to fight your way through the town; across the river are rows of windows from which the enemy shoots at you (a common feature in this episode that I’m starting to suspect may be a favorite feature of one of the mappers.)
E2L7: Urban Rush
The finale of WWIIGI involves fighting your way through a massive urban area to rescue a captured general. This is probably the largest level in the episode; with an enemy around every corner. While it’s otherwise an interesting, intense level (a small legion of semi-invincible SS notwithstanding) there’s a frustrating bit where you must go through a no-man’s-land of sorts that’s constantly being bombarded by artillery.
Platoon Leader
PLT_E1L1: Hill 41
Eeeuuugh. You start at the base of a hill. While you have a radio that can call in both a tank assault as well as an air strike, your main strategy is going to be charging up a hill swarming with IJA troops. While the hill is actually rather realistically constructed, with varying slopes and flat planes, this is about the only interesting facet of the level design as the entire hill is covered in invisible land mines and enemy shooting at you. Making matters worse is that the game seemingly arbitrarily will declare the mission a failure and cover the screen with a failure notice, forcing you to restart. I even god-moded my way up to the top, killed everything I could, blew up the tunnel entrance, and still failed. This level sucks.
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