First Battalion

Rating ESRB: Teen Genre action Publisher Dreamcatcher Interactive External Links Official Dreamcatcher Interactive Website

This budget title from Dreamcatcher did not initially seem that impressive, but it turned out to be a perfectly mediocre game that is fun in short bursts. First Battalion is a medium paced tank combat game with a World War II theme. It is not a simulation, but rather a third person shooter in disguise. Despite the game's short comings, there is some fun to be found here.

The graphics are not a total disappointment. The environment is well done and the tanks look realistic. All of the textures have a high level of detail, although, there are issues, like graphical clipping that occurs when running over barbed wire and trees. Character animations look clunky and when mowing down enemy soldiers they fall over like cardboard cutouts. These annoyances can be frustrating considering the graphical quality of everything else. Also, the environment is not "totally destructible" as claimed. Trees will fall over, but you're not going to be blowing holes through buildings. The fire and explosion effects are well done, which helps since you'll see plenty of them.

Gameplay is simple and satisfying, using traditional WASD controls for movement and the mouse for aiming and shooting. The tanks are responsive and aiming is painless, although I quickly learned to aim ahead of fast moving targets. My only complaint with the shooting system is that the color used when targeting enemies is green, and that red is used for allies. This seemed counterintuitive, but I soon learned to ignore it and just shoot at everything that moved. On some missions, you are accompanied by two other tanks on some missions, which you can send rudimentary orders such as flanking. Most of the time these orders didn't change how my squad behaved, and it usually came down to me doing most of the killing anyway.

The game consists of many missions that are spread throughout the European theatre, but all of the missions end up looking the same. Unfortunately, most missions boil down to a simple formula involving a series of objectives that usually consists of clearing out or defending an area for a certain amount of time. Most of the game consists of driving to the next checkpoint to blow up whatever is there, and then repeating. Health and ammo are unlikely to be a concern as there are plenty of medical buildings and ammo stores that will refill your cache instantly.

Upon trying the multiplayer mode I was greeted with a listing of one game server in a clunky server browser. This mode is similar to the Battlefield series, but with tanks only. It consists of two teams trying to capture as many areas on the map as possible, which could be a fun multiplayer experience. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be much of a multiplayer community.

Overall, First Battalion is solid for a game on the cheap side. Jumping in for 15 minutes to blow up some tanks and to run over soldiers is good for a quick thrill. However, the tiresome missions stretch on for too long, making them frustrating and difficult to finish. This game does not provide a revolutionary experience, but if you take it for what it is, you will not be disappointed.