E3 2012: Enemy Front – First Impressions

Stuart Black is arguably the Michael Bay of videogames. His previous work includes – Criterion’s Black and Bodycount from Codemasters which both contained ridiculous amounts of environmental destruction, guns, bullets and killing. His latest game is a World War II first-person shooter called Enemy Front and I got a see an early build at this year’s E3 Expo. I was expecting to see a lot of carnage.

Right from the start, I was told that the game focuses on skirmishes, rather than the more famous and larger battles from the war. Instead of killing Nazis on the beach you’ll be slaughtering them in pretty French villages, Chateauxs and in some lovely leafy forests.

You play a giant cliché, I mean, a wisecracking American, who’s been dropped behind enemy lines to kill all Nazis. The gameplay on offer is your typical run-and-gun, cover-based action found in practically every other war time FPS. If you like Call of Duty, Battlefield 3 or Medal of Honor you’ll probably love Enemy Front. In the demo swathes of Nazi soldiers came a cropper as our hero crouched, climbed and blasted his way through the level. It’s action, action and more action.

Powered by CryEngine 3, Enemy Front certainly looks the business with a picturesque French village acting as the main location for the demo. This being a Stuart Black game everything, and I mean everything in the village EXPLODED – walls, fences, tanks, cars, buildings and soldiers. Actually, I don’t remember any of the trees exploding but I’m sure that will be added in later.

You will have up to 25 different weapons to cause trouble with as you single-handedly take on the might of the German army. This lone wolf approach produced a pleasing absence of annoying team mates in the demo with the only noises coming from the constant gun fire, explosions and people screaming in agony after being shot. There is nothing worse in an FPS than trying to play with stupid, incompetent team-mates, so in this respect Enemy Front is onto a winner.

Later on in the game, team-mates will appear but in the form of the French Resistance as you collectively take part in an assault on Hitler’s bunker; because no self-respecting WWII game can be without a mission to kill Hitler. He’s the ultimate big bad. There’s also going to be a some sort of multiplayer component on top of the single-player campaign.

The Enemy Front demo was packed full of war clichés, the worst of which was the main character who came out with some truly cringe worthy wise cracks as he went about his killing. The game looked like every other WWII FPS but with added explosions. To its credit, it features an interesting take on World War II by covering the smaller, more intimate skirmishes. Hopefully, Enemy Front will contain enough variety and depth in its missions to make it stand out from the Call of Dutys and Battlefields of this world.

Enemy Front is planned for release during the first half of 2013 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.