Gameplay

Movement

Default controls were pretty worthless in this game, as they were just placed willy-nilly over the keyboard. A few quick changes and I was back to my usual Quake setup. Changing those were a snap, the menu system isn't overly complicated and fairly easy to navigate through. The menu system has this parchment type feel to it. It has this "papers" look; you see little stamps and German words all over it, very nice and still useful. Kudos.

The Uzi flashlight. AKA Laser Pistol

Go grenade, go!

Movement was pretty usual of FPS games; one oddity I encountered was hitting both the strafe key and forward key at the same time. The character went considerably faster than normal and it seemed to go faster as you ran along a wall. . In other words, those of you who miss strafe running from Quake 1 can take heart - it's in Mortyr as well. A little gripe, the steepness of the staircases, these things are hideously inclined. I was looking at a staircase and didn't recognize it as one until I circled around. I found it pretty hard to walk down most of them; the character would almost always make some grunt as though he had slipped.

Online multiplayer wasn't even worth the attempt as I would be hard pressed to find anyone to play with. I went to the biggest site hyping Mortyr and found no servers available. Playing it over the LAN to test out performance didn't reveal very much in the way of compelling gameplay either.

Action shot of the Panzerfaust

That's got some range

Now for the big downfall of the game, what you actually do in the levels. There was no variation from killing, getting a key and going to the next level. One would think that this had been done to death but nooooo, one more company had to give it a shot. If that is all you are looking for, then game isn't all that bad. But with the offerings from other companies being superior in terms of AI, graphics and multiplayer, it would be a hard thing to opt for this game as an experienced player, or even as a new player.

Aim On, Aim Off. The Aimmer!

A feature that I haven't seen in other games is the way they implemented targeting. There are two options, "aim on" and "aim off"; the first moves the crosshairs to where the bullet will hit, the other leaves it stationary, working as a normal crosshair. At first I had aim off without realizing it and I would tag people and they wouldn't die. I thought this was just ludicrous, until I realized that aim off mean the bullets don't take a straight path all the time. Not a bad thing because it actually added a bit of realism. Playing with aim on is pretty funky too. The crosshair keeps bobbing up and down and just floats around, telling you where the bullet will strike.

Zoomed and ready to cap

Zee Menu

AI Off

Enemy AI is a term loosely used on this game. No matter what level of difficulty you play at the enemies still react the same way. The difficulty settings just seem to dim the lighting and add more baddies. Their aim does get better, but that just doesn't cut it anymore. At a great distance the enemy just runs in circles if fired upon. It will attempt to fire back and then return to running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Enemies in Mortyr don't show many signs of intelligence, making these the dumbest I Nazis I have ever come across.