finished the game on realistic difficulty and enjoyed my time in the trenches.
i played about 10 hours but this game doesn't properly record game time so i only have 5 mins so i can review it.

in this game any headshot on any difficulty will result in an instant death, if you aren't up for dying this way a lot of time this won't be that much fun, and generally im kinda conflicted on if i really would recommend it or not because of the difficulty and confusion present throughout the game, but ultimately it is a decent old game for anyone wanting to play a trench warfare type game.

for the most part what i enjoy most about this game is the 2000's atmosphere encapsulated within this game, and sometimes it borders on a horror atmosphere where the only noises around you are your own guns or the nearby beeps of computers and machinery, the game also features a flashlight to enhance the atmosphere in darker areas.

it is kinda odd that the developers decided to add a 3rd person mode into the game since it clearly isn't a good way to play, and this 3rd person mode seems to have been the reason behind the strange key mapping choices as well, even the trailer doesn't quite seem to know how to play in 3rd person, although it does seem like the atmosphere can be equally enjoyed in both 1st person and 3rd person due to the jank and difficulty present in 3rd person that games really wouldn't wanna replicate today.

this game has quite a bit of back tracking, especially in the late game where you are required to back track multiple times, sometimes it can be confusing where you are supposed to go next, actually, it happens more than sometimes, a decent portion of the late game ended up being taken by me watching a walkthrough so i could properly see where to go next, this game does give hints from your headpiece, enemies, and computers, but stuff like "find 2 hidden buttons on this train" or simply having to shoot certain things without clear direction isn't great in terms of game design overall.

this is also kylotonn's first ever game, came out before bet on soldier, and many elements of this game do certainly show up in B.O.S., difficulty included, though those games are generally more polished and a bit more fun to play since they clearly gained experience from this game, one nice feature in this game was being able to review some previous messages that where told to you, which is a feature i really miss in other games as i like to listen to certain dialogues multiple times.

the story was quite interesting, and a lot more cohesive than B.O.S. despite the game series being set in the same universe, generally the story is about powerful people wanting to continue the war forever so the war economy/stocks would keep rising and they will fight to keep it that way, and your story doesn't really end up overlapping with the bigger narrative as the game ends before you truly make a dent in the war empire, this tragic story still gets a thumbs up from me.

this game also has good voice acting and english subtitles in english, german and russian, which is surprising since kylotonn's next game B.O.S. has pretty weak voice acting overall, i figured that was mostly stemming from them being a french developer but since this game has good voice acting im not sure what happened for their next projects to be underwhelming in this department.

this game is technically has a different version called "world war zero" but there seems to be quite a bit of differences between them and the other version seems more liked anyways.

i would say this game is worth the full price since its just so cheap, and it does have a decent amount of gameplay within itself, but it is a question of if you would really enjoy the gameplay of quicksave quickload before each encounter.