My Worst Day WWII

Doing the Impossible

Today, first-person shooters take millions of dollars, years, and huge teams to develop, right? It's just impossible for a lone-wolf developer to create an FPS that's compelling.

Well, maybe not--if you concentrate on innovative gameplay instead of polygon count and particle effects. That's what Rune Trollebo has done.

My Worst Day WW2 isn't a level-based gib-fest like Doom, a death-match game like Quake or a team shooter like Counter Strike. Instead, its emphasis is on sneaking, sniping, and surviving in a hostile environment--with the focus on eventually completing a single, difficult mission.

My Worst Day provides a far better feeling of actual combat than anything else out there. If you go in guns blazing, you will shortly be dead. You're a lone Norwegian resistance fighter on an island crawling with Nazis, your mission to blow up two large artillery emplacements, and your tools some weapons and supplies the Allies have airdropped to assist you--including some explosives to blow up those emplacements.

Problem is, the Germans have found the explosives. Your only chance is to find some of the airdropped supplies, take out Germans one by one and quietly, locate and secure the explosives, and eventually fulfill your mission. It's a game for sneaking and sniping, in other words--and much of the time you'll be on the run, trying to find cover and shake enemies who are looking for you.

There are three gameplay modes. Perhaps the most interesting (but most difficult) is the "sniper" mode, where weapons behave realistically, down to the effect of your heart rate on aim, and wind direction on path of bullets. "Standard" is a little easier, and "arcade" is closer to a traditional FPS experience.

There are no levels: The feeling is much like a realistic, if perhaps foolhardy, WWII mission.

If what you want in an FPS is ever-improving graphics, look elswhere; My Worst Day is not bad looking, but it's created by a lone-wolf developer, and could not possibly have the glitz of a big-budget title. But if what you want is a novel and very different twist on the genre, you need look no farther.