WW2GI and the saving private ryan TC for duke nukem 3D: a level-by-level breakdown

EPISODE 1: D-DAY

the first half of the game starts off with a bang as you're dropped right into it with the omaha beach landings; from there you'll go on through the hedgerows and villages of normandy, killing nazis left and right and dying... again... and again... and again. according to the credits, we can thank tuoma "tuco" korva and lado "icebreaker" crnologar for the level design, but i've no way of telling you who did which.

E1L1: d-day what's more iconic in united states military history during WW2 than omaha beach? this recreation of the bloody battle might not be as lethal as the real thing, but it sure is nearly as nightmarish. the game throws you in deep real fast and you're forced to learn, through trial and error, the basics of the game, all the while random explosions and bullets out of nowhere will cut your gameplay short. you'd think they'd at least give us some basic training... even medal of honor frontline was more forgiving.

E1L2: atlantic wall omaha beach, part 2. you're alone for this one, you and several dozen enemy troops as you work your way through a complex of shattered bunkers and rail lines. not much sense to the layout on this one, though cool carnage as a row of parked trucks are annihilated in an artillery explosion -- along with all the nazi goons hiding behind them.

E1L3: defend you meet up with some friendlies just in time for a panicked radio message -- a squad is pinned down under enemy fire and need help. working your way through a flooded village and a forest infested with nazis, you eventually come upon the squad, hiding in some foxholes as a couple dozen enemy mysteriously teleport in by a hedgerow on the far end of the field. aside from some extra ammo, you also get access to an artillery strike via radio and a mortar launcher. hold out long enough and a gate will open with reinforcements behind, and the exit beyond.

E1L4: hunt for the 88s jesus christ. if you managed to get through the d-day map without getting too frustrated you may wind up throwing in the towel on this one, an extremely dark night mission in the woods where the enemy can see you but you can't see them, and they always have insanely good aim. the one thing it has going for it is a pretty cool scripted sequence where you and a squad of guys traverse a bit of forest, exchanging some bad banter -- very cool for the build engine! and then they all die in an ambush, leaving you to play audie murphy -- again.

E1L5: finding private mccurkee first of all, lol. second of all, this mission is actually almost fun. a ruined little town teeming with enemy, you'll have an opportunity to use a rifle to pop enemies from a distance, which will be useful as there's plenty of snipers. a mortar team will make your life hell near the end. it's fun working your way through the ruined buildings and finding ways to climb up into otherwise inaccessible rooms.

E1L6: saving private mccurkee did you like e1l5? how would you like to do it again, only this time in reverse, in the dark, and with an NPC in tow that you have to babysit -- assuming he doesn't get his dumb ass stuck in the foxhole right at the beginning of the level and then you don't notice he's done it so you save your game like a dumbass and now you have to noclip through the gate at the end because the idiot doesn't know how to climb?

yeah. i didn't like e1l6.

E1L7: mop up the final mission of the d-day episode is a mercifully daytime shootout across a semi-detatched military complex in which you shoot a bunch of nazis, blow up some tanks, dodge some artillery fire and, in the end, lay waste to a small, fenced-in compound guarded by SS, who distinguish themselves from regular grunts by their distinctive black uniforms and red nazi armbands. just hanging around them lowers your morale; ignoring the fact that the morale system makes no sense, this does amusingly give rise to the idea that the SS are so evil that they can sap you on a psychic level.

i mean, that's true of nazis today.

final thoughts: not a good first half. maybe three or four of the levels are salvageable; the rest are unmitigated shit, especially e1l4. while this is very likely the first-ever WW2 FPS to feature the omaha beach landings and the normandy invasion at large, it's a novelty at best, an exercise in frustration that shows the limits both of the engine and the designers' talents.

EPISODE 2: FRANCE

not sure what exactly distinguishes this episode from the previous, except that it's perhaps a continuation of the battle of normandy? who knows. regardless, it's another 7 levels of this shit, because they couldn't see what they did in episode 1 and think "we've done enough damage."

E2L1: hell from above a much more sensible first level, this is essentially a sweep-and-clear mission as you work your way (alone, of course) through a cute little village along a river. lots of wide open space means little cover for you, but it also makes combat a bit of a turkey shoot (especially with auto-aim on.) oddly you get tons of MP40 ammo -- even maxing it out -- before you ever actually get the MP40.

E2L2: seaside sweep a quick jaunt through a seaport. lots of nazis, and lots of BAR ammo to perforate them with. would actually be a decent level if not for an issue i ran into -- i don't know if it's endemic to the game or if it's a bug introduced by eduke32 -- that placed two very large wall texture sprites in the map that blocked my view of the final building, forcing me to god mode just to be able to approach the place.

E2L3: under fire similar to "defend" from the first episode, the first half of this mission involves you facing off against endlessly respawning waves of germans until such time that you're called to retreat through the village, which is swarming with germans. clear your way through it and you're treated to a grisly scene of SS troops forming a firing squad to execute captured allied prisoners. definitely feels like a precursor to the early call of duty levels. it's not *too* bad a level i guess.

E2L4: paperwork it's time to attack an SS-occupied chateau in this quick little mission. it starts off surprisingly easy with a short, linear path that takes you through some countryside. a heavily fortified bridge serves as the main defense of the chateau and every window bristles with guns. get inside the chateau walls and it's wall-to-wall SS, draining your morale with every burst of their MP40s and having the infuriating tendency to have your shots (especially your BAR) go right through them.

E2L5: railroad typhoon you've been tasked with rescuing a bunch of captured allied troops who've been put on a train, which means storming a trainyard. it's mostly wide open spaces here, though there is a cool part in a connecting tunnel where you're checking train cars. the trainyard itself is comparatively vast, and enemy fire comes from all directions. relatively fun map.

E2L6: a game of bridge like the name suggests, the key feature of this level is a bridge, currently occupied by a tank and a large contingent of nazis. to get there you'll have to fight your way through the town; across the river are rows of windows from which the enemy shoots at you (a common feature in this episode that i'm starting to suspect may be a favorite feature of one of the mappers.)

E2L7: urban rush the finale of WW2GI involves fighting your way through a massive urban area to rescue a captured general. this is probably the largest level in the episode; with an enemy around every corner. while it's otherwise an interesting, intense level (a small legion of semi-invincible SS notwithstanding) there's a frustrating bit where you must go through a no-man's-land of sorts that's constantly being bombarded by artillery.

final thoughts: a significantly better second half, but the problem is, that's not saying much. it still suffers from issues endemic to the game, like the insane reaction times of the enemy, the massive damage they do to you, and so on. however, the gameplay is much more straightforward for the most part, with no NPCs to babysit, no weird trial-and-error "wtf do i do next" issues, just pure nazi slaughter. now if only the game didn't suck.

PLATOON LEADER

platoon leader is a free expansion for WW2GI that adds three more levels to the game and several additional features. two of these, inexplicably, are set during the vietnam war, a throwback to TNT team's earlier outing NAM (which itself was a sequel to their earlier free mod for duke nukem 3D 'platoon,' based on the movie of the same name.) the remaining level, however, is set in the pacific theater of world war 2. the result is that the armory is a mix of WW2 and vietnam war-era weaponry, with the level design such that you won't receive weapons that don't belong in the era you're playing. speaking of level design, no clue who did this one, but i want to punch them.

PLT_E1L1: hill 41 eeeuuugh. you start at the base of a hill. while you have a radio that can call in both a tank assault as well as an air strike, your main strategy is going to be charging up a hill swarming with IJA troops. while the hill is actually rather realistically constructed, with varying slopes and flat planes, this is about the only interesting facet of the level design as the entire hill is covered in invisible land mines and enemy shooting at you. making matters worse is that the game seemingly arbitrarily will declare the mission a failure and cover the screen with a failure notice, forcing you to restart. i even god-moded my way up to the top, killed everything i could, blew up the tunnel entrance, and still failed. this level sucks.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN TC* FOR DUKE NUKEM 3D

"saving private ryan" is a landmark war film that changed how war movies were made and inflamed the imaginations of game designers everywhere. imagine storming omaha beach from the comfort of your own home; imagine fighting through the hedgerows. while the commercial game "WW2GI" was the very first world war II-themed FPS that wasn't wolfenstein with its abstract mazes and mad science, "saving private ryan TC," released a few months after WW2GI (and using some stolen assets from it), was an attempt by a small group of duke 3d fans to recreate their favorite war movie. in this mod for duke nukem 3D are five levels, each one representing a key scene from the film. an archived version of the mod's website lists two people as level designers: jeff (using the name eXtreme-Rush) and jody (using the name kissle.) i couldn't tell you who did which maps, not that it terribly matters.

* note: TC stands for total conversion, an older term for what we'd now simply call a mod

SPRL1: ohmaha beach yes, that's how it's spelled. basically a worse version of ww2gi's d-day map, it can be done in a matter of seconds. once you blow the shingle and get up onto the ridge it's just nazi city in the trenches beyond, and ammo is scarce -- you're better off just running towards the crater with the movie poster in it.

SPRL2: vierville very short little jaunt through a war-torn village, with a squad of useless soldiers following you. the ruined applecart from the movie is here, as is the half-blown out house; a lone enemy up in a tower is easily dispatched, but figuring out how to get past the invisible wall blocking your further progress is tougher.

SPRL3: bunker another short level, a charge up a hill with the enemy already firing at you. the bunker itself with the radar is cool-looking, at least.

SPRL4: the fields basically "bunker" but with tall, semi-transparent grass sprites everywhere. kill all the nazis and then go talk to the US soldiers hiding near the burning halftrack, and you're on to the finale.

SPRL5: last battle probably the closest this thing gets to a real level, and it sucks ass. you'll not hurt for ammo, and health items actually show up here, but the place is teeming with enemy and cover is light. get across the bridge and you're done.

final thoughts: whoof. while it's true they recreated the setpieces, it comes at the expense of gameplay. the levels are, in a word, ugly and simple, with little in the way of anything distinctive. the whole thing can be gotten through in about 10-15 minutes; wouldn't it have been more fun to simply mix the movie's story beats into a broader game that more closely resembles WW2GI? sometimes i wonder what happened to the mod team; it's clear they were young when they made this (weren't we all, back then...) i guess in the end i admire what they were trying to do, and i appreciate that they were young and didn't really think this through. but it just doesn't work.