Playstation 2 - Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers

Format
Playstation 2
Publisher
SouthPeak Interactive
Developer
BattleBorne Entertainment
Country of origin
US
Genre
Shooter

Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers

By David Rasmussen
5th Mar 06

If you are a major gaming company then life is good for you.
You have lots to draw on for games to make, and you can draw in any major franchise in order to use their series to make the next “great gaming releases”… except if your Koei then you seem to be brain dead and only want to release 501 versions of Dynasty Warriors, Kessan and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
But if you are a small company then it is not so good for you.
You have few options, and lots of been there done that genres to milk like a Miltank is milked by the Poke’mon franchise owners… and that, by the way, is only rarely a good thing… except for the whole Miltank milking, which is never ever a good thing.

Sometimes we get little gems like Way of the Samurai (which is actually an interesting play), and Cattle Call’s Arc the Lad : Twilight of the Spirits… not the (bleep)y Arc the Lad : End of Darkness mind you, I said “Twilight of the Spirits“ (so thank you very much big company Namco, thank you for RUINING my favorite RPG)… oh, and don’t forget Double Fine’s Psychonauts from the master of the point and click genre, aka Tim Schaffer (he who has triumphed with such PC classics as Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series). But more often than not these triumphs are too few and far between, with more bad dismounts out there than good hits. And always on the same tired and done to death genres, mind you, always on the same tired genres…

Small companies love them “tried and true” things, even if those tried and true things have been done to such a fault that companies should know better than to bang out another mediocre game in the genre just to try and milk the dead corpse of the genre. You probably know these dead milkers by heart by now, the brawler (aka the beat-em-up) who has only recently hit paydirt with the release of The Warriors, party games (which will need more than ANOTHER MARIO PARTY to bring back to milkability), puzzlers (which is fun on the Nintendo DS recently), street racing (Need for Speed : Most Wanted)… and, yes, the heart and soul of been there done that war gaming… the genre known as WWII video games.

Don’t mind the other recent war genre, the Middle East Conflict genre, which (heaven forbid) seemingly has finally found it’s voice after years of people avoiding the topic like the H5N1 virus post 9/11, we’re talking W-W-I-I. Yes, the war, the BIG war, fought by the Greatest Generation against the most stylishly dressed monsters in the world, aka the Nazis. Nobody had had more stylishly dressed inhuman killing machines since then… which is probably a good thing if you think about it. But then again we’re not talking about the Nazis and the holocaust (which, yes, did happen despite some weird people’s denials of it -- which could get you locked away for a few years in certain countries), we’re talking about bad WWII game franchise from people who can‘t wait to milk you for a few more dollars.

There has been a ton of WWII games out there, here there and everywhere somebody (including Lucasarts, and by that I don’t mean the Indiana Jones franchise) has done a WWII era video game.
Normandy should be a large billboard for video game companies by now, with dozens of companies advertising their past and present WWII games on the beaches every D-Day, especially since most of these games somehow tie into the events of D-Day in one way or another. Apparently Nazi bashing is more popular than Japanese bashing in WWII, go figure.
But of these franchises so far only three of these has really stuck in anyone’s minds as worth playing, let alone worth promoting and worth praising.
The first is the Medal of Honor franchise (my personal favorite), with several games like Underground (PSOne), Frontlines, the much maligned Rising Sun, and the recent European Assault (the first game taking the franchise from the one man Rambo army into squad based combat).
Then we have Call of Duty, the real soldier’s WWII. With the original Finest Hour and the new Big Red One (first WWII game for the next gen console XBox360) the game hit’s the beaches hard with the game taking you in three directions as you play the Russians, the British and the Americans… sorry, no “dark side” sith lord mode with Nazi Germany levels.
Finally there’s the recent fan favorite known as Brothers in Arms. Brothers in Arms, capitalizing on the success of Saving Private Ryan and so forth the game takes the WWII genre and gives it a hard shaking which gives it a fresh coat of gameplay and atmosphere that revives the lagging interest some has in the whole WWII thing. Now out with a sequel, the game continues to keep the WWII fans banging away with their springfields and k-bars against the Nazi hordes.
These games, without a doubt, are the games you think about when you think about WWII.

However not all games can be Medal of Honor, Call of Duty or Brothers in Arms. There are bad games out there as well as good games. Sure you could play a good game, but you might also get stuck with a less than sterling experience of axis bashing in games like the (bleep)y PC game D-Day (which SOMEHOW managed to get the blessing of the official society that handles all things D-Day related… shows how little they knew about video games), or Blitzkrieg II, or whatever other poorly made PC game based in the WWII era comes to your mind. Battlebourne’s Combat Elite : WWII Paratroopers falls into this category. An easily forgettable distraction into bad Hitler smashing.

Hey kids! Ever wondered what would happen if you got a bunch of Champions of Norrath addicts into a room and told them to make a WWII game? Odds are they would make… this game!
Hey! You got your Champions of Norrath clone in my WWII genre game!
Hey! You got your WWII genre game in my Champions of Norrath clone -- only without the hot female characters you could strip down to their itsy-bitsy bathing suits, mind you, and without the character, personality and fun that was the hallmark of the Champions series. That’d be asking for too much I suppose.

Well I guess we can’t all be Medal of Honor, Call of Duty or Brothers in Arms, but still!
Take everything that is Champions (or X-Men Legends depending on your taste only without the massive powerups or Patrick Stewart), drain the fun out of it (but not the same overhead gameplaying mechanics) and set it in WWII and you’ll be stuck with this game. A Champions clone that pales in comparison to the fantasy wonder of Champions (or X-Men Legends if you‘re swinging that way)… really, get Champions of Norrath and Champions : Return to Arms (or X-Men Legends 1 & 2 : Rise of Apocalypse)… don’t get this.

The game starts with (and suffers from a smathering of) generic “war footage” from the old V for Victory newsreel footage (recently released on DVD) to “introduce” the levels… badly. Add to that less than exciting “animation” that just doesn’t cut the mustard gas and you got the start of a not so shining example of WWII gaming that happily traipse down the mine laden path of Nazi snipers and soldiers, singing a happy tune all the while… take pity on the poor underwhelming game please.
The story, such as it is, is a uninspired romp through Europe that starts with D-Day and rolls along from there. Set in an uninspiring story, riddled with uninspiring characters, and packed with levels for people suffering from Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (due to the fact that the game is riddled with levels that last only a few minutes apiece in terms of gameplay) you’ll drag yourself through short gameplay infected with glitches and same-run voice acting that underwhelms as it “tries” to instill some energy into the lackluster storyline, and fails. The voices, which seems to lack spirit or life, try to “sound“ dramatic… and fail.
How even the most “tense” and “dramatic” moments of the game end up sounding so damn underwhelming is something only the voice actors and the game staff knows about. I’m abit clueless.

Of course if this is a game based on a cool MMORPG style overheader you’d think the game could be better. I mean, really, you’d think that a game that followed in the fine steps of a franchise like the Champions series would, you know, NOT suck… but since this game is NOT made by the same people who made the Champions series (surprise surprise) you should probably not have such high or strong expectations when it comes to this game.
At the top of the batting line-up we have the bland presentation of the game.
There’s no energy in the delivery of this WWII game. It doesn’t have the emotional punch of Frontlines, or Medal of Honor : European Assault. Also this game does not have the impact of the intro of Call of Duty : Finest Hour, or cutscenes that do the topic material justice. The game just… well, it just sits there. Sit, bad game, sit! Sure, the game TRIES to be “dramatic” and all, but it fails. I mean the bland war footage, the uninspiring opening, and the bland cut scenes (in a game that just isn’t all that exciting) really will do nothing to get you going into the game which just bleeds uninteresting in bucketloads.

It only gets worst as you find yourself in the company of like sounding “characters” who do nothing to try and salvage some “excitement” from this faltering game. The voice acting is just plain bad. Even when they’re trying to be “dramatic” they don’t really do much for me.
The Americans, the French (suffering from a bad case of Chet R. Chase award winning bad stereotyping), the British and the Germans (who seem to ONLY speak in what I guess is some voice actor’s going at German), all done in the same droning vocal styling -- damn! Oh, you better make sure you got the subtitles option clicked to on with this game otherwise you’ll have no idea what your enemies are talking about when you see them.

Now while the game has some interesting things, like the combat skills system which allows you to level up your skills as you play (the more levels you beat the more points you earn which you can swap for skills) it doesn’t seem as if those skills you learn actually do you any good! In fact after leveling up some of my skills I honestly can say I seem to notice no difference in how I fight before and after I leveled up certain talents! Also despite the fact you have a stealth thing and are told to hide often you can basically take it slow and mow down enemies on the fly… of course a little avoidance is good since you don’t seem to lock on until you’re a certain distance from your pixilated enemies which is a hassle. Oh, and don’t forget to constantly turn your camera angle (yourself) towards your enemies because your target lock refuses to lock even if the person is within spitting distance without you turning towards them! That blows!

Then there is the glitch-glitch-glitches.
Sometimes watch German troops teleport about… or just pop back and forth as you shoot at them.
Despite the fact the game has a programmable “gore” factor you only sometimes have blood flying, otherwise it sometimes doesn’t happen.
I think I’ve accidentally killed my own men at times without being penalized for it… you know, a whole armada of little people, all the gunfire, sometimes your own men shoot at you if you accidentally lob some ammo their way… I got confused sometimes and had to kill them. Anyway so much for the no friendly fire option which games that kiss up to the Medal of Honor Society stick to like glue.
Oh, yeah, the above. Your own men will sometimes glitch and start shooting at you for the slightest disruption or mistake. Accidentally blow a grenade near them or something and they’ll start chucking ammo your direction without a second thought! Gee, what jerks.
Gun sound f/x will sometimes fail and it’ll sound like your guns are clicking stones together or something, amongst the other sound f/x failings during gameplay.
Auto reload on your character sucks. Better constantly tap the circle button because if you have to rely on the character auto loading on his own you’ll be so disappointed… and so dead since it takes several seconds to “reload“ which is several seconds to be drilled full of lead by enemy shooters.
Oh, and the relentless sameness of level after level after level, with everything looking like everything else with different window dressing is just plain boring. I mean dammit! Wandering through forests, cities, bridges, countryside, sewers and so forth seems so similar that it’s almost mind numbing!
With the same relentless tasks to do, the same not so inspired graphics to greet you, and short quick dirty level after level of the same missions and objectives? You‘ll find yourself not inspired by the game.
And when you die? First time I died I vanished in a puff of smoke or whatever! I think I hit a landmine or something… probably that. I vanished in a puff of smoke, and that was that… how boring, though I know David Copperfield would be proud of me!
But just to make sure I died again. This time shot by a bazooka… once again I did a vanishing act in a puff of smoke… yeah, my magical death trick -- bleah. Finally the overall package… breakdown time.

Combat Elite WWII Paratrooper Breakdown
What’s Hot?
Hmm… I guess if you are a die hard total WWII fanatic you’d… go play Call of Duty : Big Red One.
I don’t know but the whole Champions mechanics painted over a WWII games just falls short.
I guess I’ll stick to 1st & 3rd person shooter WWII games, this whole action Champions inspired look just doesn’t work for me.

What’s Not?
This game. Really. What were they thinking when they made this. It doesn’t have the energy of Champions (or X-Men Legends) and just comes off as a 3rd rate WWII game… bleah.

Moments to Remember?
Hmm… all the Germans actually speak German… which is a different thing I suppose.

What to Ignore?
The glitch-glitch-glitches.

Overall?
You could do better than Combat Elite : WWII Paratroopers, much much better.
Of course if you must have a new WWII fixation I guess there is nothing I can do to turn you away from this game, but with the short gameplay (and not very inspired gameplay at that), lacking energy in the presentation and the not so exciting story you’ll find yourself bored with this faster than you think.
The game could have been better. In fact I’m certain the game could be better. Bottom line is I guess you could play this (since it does it’s job at least fairly) but you could do better. Much better.

-- David Rasmussen 5th Mar 06

Playstation 2 Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers Images