Was World War 1 one of the most horrifying wars out th....yes it was. I mean, sure, people were friendly too, welcoming in spirits, if you've watched Steven Spielberg's War Horse or a few documentaries. Then there's the stuff of horrors coming from elsewhere.
In Conscript, you play as a French Soldier, holding the base in the battle of Verdun with your brother. Things don't go well, the Germans are already pushing hard on the assault, leaving you and him separated. Trench warfare alone, fighting against poorly built underground rooms, barbwires, gas grenades that kill, constant reloading, people dying the worst of ways, and it goes on.
This game touches most of that with a realistic design of attrition, scavenging, surviving enemies, exploring unknown territories and making do with the discovery, reminds me of something like Darkwood. Where the different experiences shape the game itself.
Must be exhausting, waking up in the middle of war, with no guns, a shovel to use mostly beating up enemy soldiers, and defending a base, the most important area in the middle of war. That's what reality is for our guy, but he's busy trying to look after his older brother, Pierre.
The other thing he's worried about is making appearances so that he doesn't get shot for treason by the French army. First battle into the war, artillery being dropped, god forbid I get hit, there's a lot going on, stuff gets very psychological, including enemy soldiers having mental breakdowns while being blown off. Me, I have to run off, and fight Germans.
There are machine guns to man, while Germans are suicide rushing towards us. I got a rifle, but every shot means I had to manually reload a round before the whole gun. The only way out of here was basically bypassing a locked door that needed 4 numbers.
How was I going to get that? Well, involves rummaging and going through areas in the midst of a freaking onslaught. That's what. What orders? I'm trying to get to my brother, this war is damned to hell. There are Germans with gimp masks, rifle carriers, and sometimes 4 or 5 soldiers running at me. This was the most hyper-intense action I got from an intro.
Even after finding it, what got even worse, the bombardment getting intense and deadly tear gas started being thrown on to me. Alright, I get it, this is what trench warfare is supposed to be like, and I'm already terrified of moving to the next level. I didn't die yet, thanks to my good reflexes and experiences in survival games. But this whole shindig wasn't over, the generator powering lights are going out, the caves have little to no light, involving me exploring the area blind. Oh also, those pesky Germans, my god.
By the end, reaching to Pierre after finding him wounded before heading to the trench, there was a note left of him. Though, I had to save the game, it's limited unless you select no ink from Newgame. I have to even count my saves, never did that since 2006. Talk about palpable tension.
Soon as I head out, a cutscene of a German plunking me on the head before it fades to black. Queue game title, and me waking up in a French farm somewhere. Probably a recall episode, exploring my hometown, it's exploration game, makes sense to look for stuff. But I only got as far as finding letters, family decorations, some history, before going to bed.
As much as it does a great job of brutally retelling history, it's a harrowing experience from the character's personal view as well. He's going through absolute hell, as seen from the player's eyes as well. Soon after Germans captured the base, I was left to find Pierre.
It became more about scavenging, hiding, while trying to go through unexplored territories, with quite a bit of backtracking involved too. I had to find a key opening a pigeon's cage to relay a message. But soon as I was able to, the bird died. Of course, there are rats too, tossing a grenade will take care of the holes they're coming from. Doing so stops them spreading diseases.
And German reinforcement will come from the front line as well, so building up wired trenches after finding barbwires does much as well. Some of the French soldiers in safe rooms survived, they sell things, long as I have cigarettes to trade. Useful for many things, including weapons upgrades.
Yeah, the uniqueness of the setting started to go away a bit, and it became just like your average RPG survival title. Which, when it works, it's kind of fun to try. Especially the dark tunnels, which with poor visibility creates a large sense of dread. Of course, I was looking for things, soon as I found an important item, two krauts were waiting for me. And I ran like hell.
There are journals, closed off doors, bloody rooms, literally a pit for bodies, it's all telling about terrors of war. Especially one being a precursor to WW2. I found a bunch of dog tags, and I thought "damn, what if Pierre was one of them".
He's just a character I have to look for, but the kind of build-up tension I'm getting because of the narrative really grabs me. I kill Germans, but they have pictures of friends, themselves or family waiting for them. Reality in this game has such a dark way of showing it.
I kind of paused my playthrough after hearing strong rumblings while I was underground. Almost as if tanks and other vehicles are moving on the frontlines. I shutter to think how I'd had to engage them, I have small inventory, and can't quickly earn enough cigarettes for an upgrade either.
Also saying goodbye to stealth killing, the A.I. here aren't that bright. This game doesn't exactly have deep, wider game mechanics, to some degree, it feels like a carbon copy of Signalis. But it's not, there's enough uniqueness and great immersion to make it stand of its own. I really liked playing this, and maybe keeping the sense of dread going for hours on end. Not a fan of the backtracking, though. Sometimes exploration gets confusing.
