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Much like in almost every aspect of life, there’s a definite class divide in video games. Certain companies will churn out quality games, time after time, but others seem doomed to mediocrity, or worse. To be fair, cdv has released some decent games in the past, but UberSoldier had disaster written all over it from the moment the FPS was announced. A fleeting look at a preview build a few months back suggested some promise, but sadly the only thing uber about UberSoldier is in its name.
The story is b-movie material, with your dead corpse being brought back to life with enhanced abilities. Set during an alternative World War II, the Nazis are inevitably responsible for this, and, not liking what they’ve done, you use your new powers to make them pay. UberSoldier’s story isn’t anything to get excited about, and it’s made worse by an obvious effort by the developers to try and do something above their station. Cue dodgy in-game cutscenes, hilariously bad English voiceovers, terrible lip-syncing and you reaching for the ‘skip cutscene’ button as soon as possible.
When you’re playing the game things don’t get much better. It’s typical FPS stuff, with a generic set of weapons and adequate enemy AI. Enemies annoyingly like to be shot down, only to get back up again, whether they’re half zombiefied or not. Levels are pretty diverse, but there aren’t any that really stand out as something out of the ordinary. It’s easy to label games as average, but there’s no better way to describe UberSoldier.
In an attempt to spice things up, and to make some sense of the UberSoldier name, you have a number of special abilities. The most impressive is the temporal shield that can be set up around you, protecting you from bullet fire. The neat part about it is that bullets are tapped in the shield and can be turned on the enemies, making it ideal if you’re facing a swarm of soldiers. The game encourages headshots and the use of the knife by rewarding you with health and shield bonuses, but nothing can really save the gameplay from feeling far too generic.
For a low profile game the visuals are actually pretty impressive. While the engine could certainly have been optimised a little better, the environments look good and the real-world physics and ragdoll system are used to good effect. It’s fair to say that the visuals are the only aspect of the game worth getting excited about. As already mentioned, the audio isn’t great. The music is by no means terrible, but the voice acting is bordering on comical, and it sadly isn’t intended to be. Lines are delivered in a stilted manner, with sentences rarely linking together in a fluent manner.
UberSoldier isn’t dreadful, but it’s a long way from being up there with the best first-person shooters on the PC. The story is often laughable and the gameplay feels like a tired re-run of shooters released over the past five years. The visuals impress, if only by standing head and shoulders above everything else in the game, but as a whole UberSoldier is simply too ordinary to warrant any attention.
