Enemy Front Preview

A game with a journalist as the hero? We're in!

At a cursory glance, Enemy Front looks like an average FPS war game. But just like any good news story requires a little bit of digging, the titled unveiled by Bandai Namco and CI Games during their Global Gaming Day offers a little more than the usual run-'n'-gun. It offers a story of a man compelled to be a bystander no longer, and to muster the courage to help in the fight against the Nazi regime during World War II.

 

Revealed primarily as a tech demo but also through a small playable mission, Enemy Front revolves around an American war correspondent sent to the European theater of WWII who later, after seeing several atrocities at the hands of the Nazis, jumps into action to assist the growing Resistance movement. Enemy Front doesn't stray too far from the formula of other FPSs such as the Call of Duty series, but those moments when it does caught my attention.

A fantastic example are the protagonist's binoculars. In modern war games, enemies show up on a radar. Players know their location and can decide whether to go in action-hero style, find higher ground and snipe, if possible, or to sneak around and secure the mission via stealth. However, since Enemy Front is set in a time before that technology is available, players won't always know where the opposition lies in wait for them; unless, of course, the players utilize the hero's binoculars. The binoculars can be used to scope out enemies, which will then set a marker on a traditional map bubble, revealing their location, movement, and directional orientation.

 

The time setting offers a point of difference to the game, as CI Games stated that while the game will not be a recreation, historical accuracy was important to its creation. There will be no rapid-fire Honey Badgers here; weapons will fit their time period, and ammo will be reduced, so some strategy is required before and during the missions.

 

Another point well-touted by the development team may make some players cringe: They intend to pull back on the number of times auto-save kicks in. Harkening back to a gaming era where one wrong move could cost more than just some progress but whole missions, objectives, items, and worst of all, the revival of heinously difficult bosses, the Enemy Front team says the decision will create a bigger need for a better strategy, as opposed to just unleashing bullet hell and hoping a player makes it through.

 

They say this game will not hold your hand. I anticipate the response to that alone from modern gamers. Enemy Front infiltrates the war theater June 10, 2014 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.