REVIEW : War Mongrels (PC)
War Mongrels is a gritty real-time tactics game set on the eastern front of World War II, in which you must evade the enemy’s sight while completing several missions in war-torn landscapes. Consider Commandos, but with a new UI, controls, and options that allow you to murder Nazis in a variety of ways.
To say the game is difficult is an understatement; it forces you to think before making your next move. Its plot also examines the emotional scars of war and has a diverse cast of characters. However, not everything is perfect, as some design decisions and control schemes taint an otherwise excellent addition to the genre.
War Mongrels tells the storey of two German warriors who are sentenced to suicide missions but escaped. Their journey finally leads them to the hidden Polish Home Army, with whom they team up more to eliminate enemy soldiers in their path and liberate the country from cruel occupiers. It’s what you’d expect from a WWII plotline, but some animation cutscenes delve into what a character is thinking and expand on the ramifications of witnessing genocide.
In addition to these expository bits, characters often speak with each other during missions, allowing you to learn more about them and their characters. The problem is that, whereas each personality is distinct and has their own skills and story line, their speakers don’t always match the gravity of what they’re simply stating, and you’ll frequently seriously question why your German or Polish protagonist doesn’t even have an dialect while the Nazi security officers do – no matter how bad it sure looks.
The decision to have your primary characters speak English with little to no accent but then use German words out of nowhere feels strange. It detracts from the urgency of the current situation by tarnishing the mood of particular scenes. You’ll enjoy the music, especially the string instruments that are featured. Dubbing is of good quality; you’ll hear it most often in cut sequences that resemble cartoons, and there are occasionally Nazi images in the form of wolves. In this regard, the satisfaction and the first moment of the campaign, in which you find yourself in the heart of a battle between Nazis and Soviets, will leave a lasting impact.
Everything else about its presentation, on the other hand, is top-notch, and you can tell a lot of effort went into making sure its convoluted levels evoke a sense of dread and despair. Despite how dismal some locations are, your surroundings are incredibly detailed and attractive. Even the game’s soundtrack adds to the game’s contemplative atmosphere and provides for excellent thinking music.
And certainly, each of the game’s missions will require a lot of thought because you are given a big map, a goal, and that’s it. The game will provide you some direction at first, but once you’ve figured out the basics, you’ll be on your own to find out how to navigate from point A to point B. This offers you the impression that you may play a task however you choose, but it can also force you to overthink your strategy and fail.
During a task, you’ll be able to control one to several individuals by tapping on them or hitting the appropriate key. Each character has a particular skill set that enable them divert or draw the notice of guards. You can also have your players use their firearm to stealthily take down an enemy, or choose their weapon to shoot someone from afar – the latter is never a good choice due to the amount of attention it attracts.
Each project’s goal is to stay undetected and undetected, or to quickly destroy adversaries before becoming overwhelmed and dying. You’ll spend plenty of time preparing your actions because levels resemble ecological puzzles with guards who may kill you in an instant. Now, while this may appear to be a chore, it is actually the most gratifying aspect of the game, as the sensation you receive when you eventually complete a section after hours of experimenting is simply unforgettable.
You can also use a variety of items to identify potential mishaps. The opponents do not resolve the murders of their companions for a long period at that time, and they do not raise much noise. As an example, you might lower the car from the pedestal and remove the hanging box. Characters may be positioned behind a fixed sniper rifle or use other guns available in the area. Typically, you sleep on building roofs or hide in specific structures or waterways. Monitoring the point of view of opponents, where you might not even be, or lying on the ground with decreased surveillance, is a crucial instrument. Dogs and officers, on the other hand, aid the Nazis, who are generally susceptible to loud and understand how to get through.
Now is the moment to revisit the contentious addition to your strategy. It won’t appeal to others because it detracts from the game’s natural stealth premise. You’ll have the option to put your combatants into action mode. The controls then shift to allow you to command the character’s motion with the keys, aim with the mouse, and fire without stopping or switching tasks. To put it another way, you can run, dodge, and burn like a pro.On the other side, if you can’t even deal with a portion where you’ve failed ten times, it can be a lifesaver. You simply begin killing them one by one without hesitation. However, be aware that nearby soldiers will flee, and if you do not have the ammunition or can’t duck, your effort will fail. In fact, though, you may kill ten adversaries with some skill by gradually breaking them out.
However, in more remote parts of the map, you’ll come across troops that haven’t been informed yet and haven’t taken part in the shootout. You can either repeat the process or revert to the stealth mode. The reality that the designers actively urge you to do so in various portions of the tasks is not as surprising as the option to test it out. It’s a little ridiculous when you have to sneak onto a motorcycle and then your revised quest demands that you murder all of the remaining enemies. For what purpose? Although it is fun to shoot down Nazis with a grenade launcher, such a simulation should be centred on anything else.
Surprisingly, these campaign thrills are also available in local and worldwide multiplayer. You pick a quest and team up with other players to complete it. It’s a one-of-a-kind game in this genre, but it’s fulfilling. It’s also worth noticing the assortment of extra resources available to you. These include unlocked cut sequences, period war diaries, black and white documentaries, playable individual info screens, posters, papers, postcards, and verifiable events.
The game’s material is, on the whole, extremely inconsistent. On the one hand, fascinating map and mission design and processing. Characters and their skills are really well-designed. Bonuses that are truly remarkable have been described. However, although certain sections are creative and enjoyable to travel, others are less so. The action fighting mode, on the other hand, is very disputed. After your numerous deaths and updating places, AI will shock you by responding differently at different times. She is unpredictably unpredictable. If you kill a soldier, for example, another soldier nearby will hear the noise. On the third effort, he marches directly over to you via the woods, takes a diversion and shocks you from the side, and on the fourth attempt, he runs into a corpse and asks for troops. If the Nazis who were otherwise warned weren’t all forced to the barred gate during the alarm, that would be spectacular.
Add to that a slew of relatively major blunders. After the update, for example, players complained about corrupted save files. Although the authors have deleted many of them, you will still come across some. Already in the tutorial, the game told me that I needed to divert the attention of the guard unless another soldier, whom I needed to pass invisibly, had to stay turned back. After the restart, he stayed in a designated location in line with the operation timetable, so there was no way to get out of his sight. War Mongrels isn’t the worst attempt at a Polish Commandos spin-off. The foundation is sound, the mission is extensive and diverse in content, and the audiovisual aspect is excellent. However, there are some objects that squeak and don’t tune. Not everyone will be forgiving enough to accept some quirks and flaws that add to the game’s appeal and enjoyment.
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