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View Full Version : Ubersoldier Demo Review


BobtheCkroach
03-02-2006, 06:31 AM
First of all, you can find the demo here (http://files.filefront.com/UberSoldier+English+Demo/;4823525;;/fileinfo.html).

The plot: "a World War 2 First-Person Shooter that places the player in the role of an experimental super-soldier who turns on his German masters and fights for the Allies" . . . hmmm...this sounds...um...cheesy.

Well, it might be. It just might be. I can't imagine that being the basis for an incredible, knock your socks off motion pictures. A grammy not this game will win!

The game itself didn't wow me in any big way. There were some graphical things that were pretty nifty, but nothing amazing.

For starters, I ran the demo @ 1024x768, with levels detail, models detail, weapons detail and shadow detail cranked as high as they could go. I had Texture filtering set to trilinear and AA was off. Depending on the moment, I got anywhere between 35 and 85 FPS. I saw it drop once to 26 for a quick second, and on one of my screenshots you'll see an FPS of 1. something...i'm not sure what that was about - I honestly didn't notice hardly any slowdown at all.

As I said before, the graphics were fairly good. They are definitely not the cream of the crop, but I was fine with what I saw.

Here's a screenshot that just shows off a generic scene (the quality of the screenshot isn't the best - don't judge the game on these screenies - I lost a good bit of quality converting the .tga into .jpg)

Screenshot #1 (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/BobtheCkroach/show_missing_hat.jpg)

you can't notice that well (again, screenie quality got murdered) but the guy's head is brown, right? Well it was silver to begin with - I actually shot his helmet off. I'm not sure if that is something unique to this game or not, but it's something I had never seen before. I shot him and the helmet actually flew across the room and landed somewhere else. I thought that was kinda nifty.

Screenshot #2 (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/BobtheCkroach/dropped_all_that_stuff.jpg)

Look at all that stuff around the body - that all fell off of him when he died! Again, I'm not sure if that's something new or not, but it seems pretty cool to me! All of them drop that much. You get down with a hallway of guys and there's stuff strewn everywhere!

The next thing that impressed me was a fire. I walked into a hallway, and a barrel was flying at me. Upon blowing it up, I got to watch the fire. It's much more impressive when you actually watch the movie game, but you can get an idea of the fire effects in screenie 3:

Screenshot #3 (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/BobtheCkroach/fire_effects.jpg)

You can see some fairly decent distortion above the fire, especially if you look at that light on the right side of the hallway.

After taking out the initial round of guys in the first hallway, you take an elevator the second floor - there you find these Wolfenstein-esque zombies that attack you in a horde:

Screenshot #4 (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/BobtheCkroach/what_are_they.jpg)

They're pretty freakin' cool the way they just kinda mob you all at once. I had some fun trying to kill them all with the knife for fun! :devil:


Once you get outside of the facility, you get to test out your "ubernatural powers"...which means 1 power. :rolleyes:

You have the ability to surround yourself with this force field / shield thing...

The shield doesn't just knock bullets down, but actually stops them right in their path. Here's a couple screens:

Screenshot #5 (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/BobtheCkroach/shoot_through_shield.jpg)
Screenshot #6 (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/BobtheCkroach/bullets_hang_time_he_he.jpg)

In 'shot 5, you're just looking at me using the shield. The distortion effects as I get shot / shoot out of it are pretty cool, if I do say so myself. In 'shot 6, my shield is fading, but you can make out about 10 red dots - mostly under the "saved by trial version" text...those are the bullets that were shot at me! They sit embedded in the shield until it goes away! Pretty nifty!

According to what I read, you can actually somehow cause those bullets to go hurtling back out and cause damage, but I haven't been able to figure out how. If you can, I imagine it's quite cool.

So you know what I'm likin'...the graphics and details. In my mind, they're not too shabby. Unfortunately, that might be where this story comes to a close. I'm not sure where the plot ends up going, but it's pretty cheesy to begin with and I can't imagine that you actually really give a crap after a while. The AI in the game was mediocre at best. There were a few times where I shot a guy, and he stayed down for a few seconds, making me think he was dead, and then when I turned around he jumped up and shot me, but that was about it. None of them were overly crafty or imaginative.

The sound was run of the mill. I didn't notice anything that made me cringe, but nothing made me go "ooh!" either.

As for gameplay, while the AI didn't stand out, I had a good enough time that I ran through the demo a couple times. Mostly just to change some settings and capture some screenies, but also because the game had some mild fun to it. I don't think the lasting value is there to make it worth purchasing, but heck - demoes are free!

The title has some strong points, but not nearly as many as it has concerns. I would seriously doubt that it'd keep your attention throughout the game, and there was no MP offered in this demo - not even a menu item that couldn't be clicked. I'm not sure this game has any kind of lasting value. Without strong single player, and since it's apparently lacking any sort of Multiplayer, I gotta think that this title will fall on its face.

Sorry ubersoldier. You tempted me early in the demo, but ultimately you left me feeling empty. You won't be seeing my money any time soon.

Oh, and just because I enjoy interactable corpses...Blood is fun!!! (http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y263/BobtheCkroach/blood_is_fun.jpg)
FUS1ON
03-02-2006, 06:54 AM
Nice review Bob, thanks. :)
BobtheCkroach
03-02-2006, 07:12 AM
Nice review Bob, thanks. :)

My pleasure.
EXEcution
03-02-2006, 07:51 PM
Cool Tanks BOB, Won't be downloading it then.
BobtheCkroach
03-02-2006, 07:53 PM
Cool Tanks BOB, Won't be downloading it then.

In my opinion, you probably won't be missing much.
EXEcution
03-02-2006, 08:04 PM
In my opinion, you probably won't be missing much.
Didn't think so. Like I said many times before nowadsys the single player component of PC games is relly shallow. Developers may have some sense of a story but they can't seem to be able to tell it in an appropriate fashion. After all sp in FPS games revolves around some sort of event and these events are getting way to repetative.

Why not make something that is more realistic and go with a more abstact approach. Something like Condemned, which I though was kind of original from reading reviews and watching videos. I mean hand-to-hand combat in an FPS that is actually executed well is pretty darn cool.
BobtheCkroach
03-02-2006, 08:05 PM
Incidently, here are a couple of trailers.

http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2375

They show some guys dying w/ the stuff scattering everywhere.

There are also a couple of moments where you can see the total stupidity of the AI...walks in kills 1 guy, the other guy shots 1 time, misses, rather than firing again starts running at him, etc.

Apparently you can "fire" the bullets in the shield back by just running up to someone and hitting them with the bullets in your shield...that's mediocre sounding, but i'll probably play through tonight again just to see it...
BobtheCkroach
03-02-2006, 08:16 PM
Didn't think so. Like I said many times before nowadsys the single player component of PC games is relly shallow. Developers may have some sense of a story but they can't seem to be able to tell it in an appropriate fashion. After all sp in FPS games revolves around some sort of event and these events are getting way to repetative.

Why not make something that is more realistic and go with a more abstact approach. Something like Condemned, which I though was kind of original from reading reviews and watching videos. I mean hand-to-hand combat in an FPS that is actually executed well is pretty darn cool.

Indeed.

Frankly, I'm fairly easy to please w/ sp. I find a good match of MP w/ friends fantastic, but I couldn't care less about playing with people I don't know, so SP is my primary. Still, I would like to see a bit more unusual and different.

I was a fan of Q4's single campaign, though it was pretty darn short. SS2 (i'm gonna get killed for that) was a lot of fun for me, too. If you go back farther, D3, HL2 and farcry are still games that I spend time playing the SP.
EXEcution
03-02-2006, 08:32 PM
Well in my opinion human opposition is worthier, no matter who it is, I don't particularly care who I'm playing with. When I establish whether they are at my level I usually play for a while. Anyone way below my level usually leaves and the better players simply discourage me from playing and trying. But we don't get good by playing the people worse than us, we get better by studying the game, watching pro demos and finally practicing with the BETTER player. Playing with strangers is good because it gives you an idea what level the general mass of players is at and what you should do to raise your own level.

Single player is just you playing against the computer. Nothing really interesting unless there is a great story or something "different" about the game. My favorite SP games are not FPS's. The Metal Gear Solid series and some console platformers and well as Metroid Prime for GC are my fav's. However I find the Resident Evil series the absolute best. I didn't really like RE4 because it abandoned the pre-rendered environments which I loved.
SoulReaver
03-02-2006, 09:41 PM
To hit the enemies with the shield: After activating the shield and stopping a bullet, just run straight at an enemy. When it hits it it dies. Pretty nifty. BTW, you can use it form the very beginning.
BobtheCkroach
03-02-2006, 09:49 PM
To hit the enemies with the shield: After activating the shield and stopping a bullet, just run straight at an enemy. When it hits it it dies. Pretty nifty. BTW, you can use it form the very beginning.

Cool beans. Guess I didn't ever think to use it @ the beginning b/c 2/3 of the way through I get that message w/ the skulls about improving something or other. Good know :thumbs:

What did you think of the game?
SoulReaver
03-02-2006, 11:20 PM
Cool beans. Guess I didn't ever think to use it @ the beginning b/c 2/3 of the way through I get that message w/ the skulls about improving something or other. Good know :thumbs:

What did you think of the game? I thought it was okay. Not too much different from typical shooters. The shield power was pretty cool. The graphics are pretty good considering the game is going to be only $30. If anything, this seems to be just a game that you play just to get to the killing.

Not going to get it though, too many FPS that are the same nowadays.
BobtheCkroach
03-02-2006, 11:32 PM
Yeah, that's about what I thought. I didn't realize it was debuting so cheap, though.

Good to know...

it'll hit the price i'd pay sooner now!
Seriously Deadly
03-03-2006, 05:50 AM
Didn't think so. Like I said many times before nowadsys the single player component of PC games is relly shallow. Developers may have some sense of a story but they can't seem to be able to tell it in an appropriate fashion. After all sp in FPS games revolves around some sort of event and these events are getting way to repetative.

Why not make something that is more realistic and go with a more abstact approach. Something like Condemned, which I though was kind of original from reading reviews and watching videos. I mean hand-to-hand combat in an FPS that is actually executed well is pretty darn cool.
i kinda agree with you EXE. They need new ideas for FPS. When i was offline for like 3 months, UT2k4 didnt really entertain me, nor Medal of Honor or basicly any of my games. THey need new ideas, and new of making them, i dont know if my idea came out right, but it is hard for me 2 explain
BobtheCkroach
03-03-2006, 07:21 AM
Oh, I totally agree. In UT2k4's defense, it's definitely not meant to be an offline game, really.

I really embrace the more unique games, though I generally still find myself within the FPS genre. I LOVED the max payne series. I've played them both a ton. I really really liked XIII. If any of you haven't played that, go download them demo. It's a wild game, and the cell shading just makes it look and feel spectacular!

There was a little nothing game out there called "Chaser". There was nothing impressive about it, except that it's storyline was superbly interesting and kept you involved. It had it's own unique feel and I really loved it. Another good, original series was No One Lives Forever - the quirkiness was really cool.

There are certains game that can be done 100 times and I'll keep buying them (HL, Doom) but I really enjoy playing the unique ones.
BobtheCkroach
03-03-2006, 07:29 AM
Well in my opinion human opposition is worthier, no matter who it is, I don't particularly care who I'm playing with. When I establish whether they are at my level I usually play for a while. Anyone way below my level usually leaves and the better players simply discourage me from playing and trying. But we don't get good by playing the people worse than us, we get better by studying the game, watching pro demos and finally practicing with the BETTER player. Playing with strangers is good because it gives you an idea what level the general mass of players is at and what you should do to raise your own level.

Single player is just you playing against the computer. Nothing really interesting unless there is a great story or something "different" about the game. My favorite SP games are not FPS's. The Metal Gear Solid series and some console platformers and well as Metroid Prime for GC are my fav's. However I find the Resident Evil series the absolute best. I didn't really like RE4 because it abandoned the pre-rendered environments which I loved.

I guess the difference between us is the mentality. If I don't win, I couldn't care less. When I play, I give it my all, but that's where the line is drawn. If I grow better w/ practice, so be it. But the moment I start dedicating time to playing online, increasing my skills, over and over...i lose interest b/c I stop enjoying it. Competition kills the game for me. If I play a game once or twice a week, I'll stay interested for months and months. If I play the game over and over, the passion is dead rather quickly, at least for quite a while, more likely forever (45 hours in Guild Wars in 2 months...not a minute since. Did I beat the game? Nope - not even close. I didn't even get to the highest level...I played WoW for the duration of the 14 day demo...it was quite fun. and I have no desire to play it at all; That said, I've been playing the Quake2 mp w/ buddies @ lan parties for like 5 years or more and we still play it almost every time we get together)

Unlike most people @ GM (from the stories i've heard), I've never thrown my mouse, or beat it on a desk. I've never slammed on my keyboard. I don't get into the game that much. I do it pure for fun. That's why I never play random folks online. Who gives a crap if a win (or lose) to someone I don't know and will never see again? It's like going to the movies for me. I don't go to the movies on my own. If I'm gonna do that, I'll wait and watch @ my house on DVD. I go with friends, for the atmosphere and the companionship.

I guess what I'm trying to say is...my quake 4 buddies...I love you guys! :bawling:

LOL