World War Zero: Ironstorm

THE BAD:
- Bland graphics
- Uninspired map design (single and multiplayer)
- Average voice acting
- Little story progression
- Repetative
- Too short and easy: a day's solid playing

SUMMARY:
It's a nice idea: change history so that World War One never ended and the Russians never became the Soviet Union, add a deranged Russo-Mongol leader, create a united western armed force that floats on the stock market and send a single agent to do it's bidding behind enemy lines. Should be a brilliant, frantic and edgy first-person shooter... but it isn't.

"World War Zero: IronStorm" is entertaining to begin with, and for sure you'll play through until you've completed it. It's major problem is the map design: linear has new meaning here. There's a few brief moments of "which door should I go through", but a quick check of the left-hand corridor shows it to be blocked and you've come down here for nothing except an unrequired medipack... shame this, as many of the locations (including German trench warfare, streets of a quiet village, a chemical weapons factory, a highspeed super train and the Reichstag in Berlin) would have the capacity in a good game to offer alternate routes. However, with a decent graphics system in place, linear design shouldn't be a complete killer... oops, mistake number two. While everything looks solid and identifiable enough, we're talking PlayStation2 release game graphics here, not a 2004 title. Bummer indeed.

Having said that, there are some good points. The guns all feel nice and managable, although you'll find the Assault Rifle pretty much covers all your gunning needs and the requirement to change to a grenade or flamethrower only really exists if you fancy a change... which you inevitably will after your fifth room of goons. Death animation is quite fun, with ragdoll physics throwing corpses around willy-nilly, but there are only so many ways a soldier can be shot, and once you've cleared the German trenches you've pretty much seen it all.

The multiplayer is incredibly basic, even painfully so. You've got the basic game modes, including Capture the Flag, and some basic game maps, including a big room and another big room and... oh, what's that? A big room? You'll be better off with a more accomplished multiplayer shooter that actually offers some space to move.

"World War Zero: IronStorm" is worth a rent if you've got nothing to do on a rainy Sunday. Load the game up, shoot some people for a few hours, watch the only story-progressing cutscene in the last few moments, fight the ridiculous final boss, bribe a friend to play one round of the multiplayer, laugh at some of the alternate news reports, then return the game and wipe your memory card. It's a fair effort, but this has been done so much better elsewhere.