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.
I couldn't get into this
I couldn't get into this game, but then I'm not the niche target it's aiming for. Can tell a lot of love has been put into this game, and if I was the type who enjoyed extremely slow-burning, authentic games then this would be a perfect game. For me it just wasn't "fun" enough, but plenty of people would enjoy what My Worst Day WII has to offer
Sniping game
I like sniping games and stealth games in general. I'm a rabid fan of the Thief and Tenchu series. The MWD demo didn't trip my trigger though. It wasn't it's graphics that turned me off. Indeed, I like me my rogue-likes and can get by just fine with spartan polygons and cardboard trees. For a sniping game though, it's kinda important to be able to distinguish between a tree and Nazi. This came up about once or twice every horizon scan and I only had a few pixels to work with.
I had a problem with sound. Now, I'm only working with stereo here, so pin-pointing a gunshot is limited to "somewhere from my left" or "somewhere to my right". It really needs a visual indicated of sound sources. Finding opponent snipers was nigh impossible. Realistic as this might be, even when I can HEAR his gunshot, but I have no idea where it came from.
It also missed a lot of details I was hoping for. Nazis did not react to sniper shots that miss. While the scoped weapons shake and wiggle, none of the sighted weapons do. They're rock solid, and from what I could tell, always hit dead center. And there's no recoil. Every enemy is a one-shot kill. There is no concept of a wounded Nazi. Nor do they panic, search, play dead, or really have any reason to be wandering out in the woods in the first place. There's no hunger limit. I dunno, but after MGS3 it seems like something that belongs. There is booze though, whiskey acts like a health pack. But I'd trade all the whiskey in Norway for a quick-swap pair of binoculars.
Lastly, it has an ungodly load time. I imagine it's loading the entire island for each game, despite that I only saw a grand total of about 10% of it. That said, it's mostly empty as one would expect a vast and open game to be. There are plenty of minutes spent looking at 2 lines and three textures, all off-white.
I like the mood and style: a sandbox military sniping game. But there's just too many missing details.
Realistic game
I played the demo and one of the things I really enjoyed was, precisely, the fact that you can hardly differentiate a soldier from a tree. I found myself shooting a bush to death once...
And also the feeling you get when you are being shot at, incapable of telling where does the shooting come from.
All of these makes you feel like what you really are : a lone soldier lost on a big island full of enemies. You're fragile and can count only on yourself to stay alive.
What I agree on, on the other hand, is the lack of a number of crucial details, like the enemy reactions to your shooting, and the handling of the weapons (and a faster way to use binoculars, hell yeah !).
I don't think food would be a nice addition though. It wouldn't add anything interesting to the gameplay.
To sum it up, a better A.I. would do for me. The state in which the game is in right now is not sufficient for me to buy it.
Scam.
Just so you know, there is a link on the developer's site (http://www.mwdgames.com/beta-tester.html) that's about paid beta-testing. Both linked sites are scams, as proven here : http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/09/why_game_tester_guide_sucks_in.php.