World War 3
The Farm 51
To me, 2005’s Battlefield 2 was a seminal title as far as military-themed first-person shooters go. Although it was rather arcade-y feeling it did have some deeper aspects to it which paved the way for other large-scale military shooters. It featured combined arms warfare with many assets on each battlefield all at once—attack and transport helicopters, fighter and bomber jets, zodiacs, etc. Most of the maps were also pretty huge and so transport vehicles were required to move troops from one objective to the next.
BF 2 also inspired my favorite military shooter of all times: Project Reality, which was a modded version of the same game engine. PR featured even larger maps, strongly encouraged teamwork and communication, and added even more nations, weapons, and vehicles. No wonder today’s most teamwork-based modern shooter, Squad, is based on PR.
Since Battlefield 2, the Battlefield franchise has double-timed straight into pure arcade-ville. For instance, In Battlefield 3 and 4 each individual soldier’s movement speed was drastically sped up and all of the maps were smaller, therefore encouraging much less emphasis on teamwork and tactics.
Not only was the movement speed hyped up but it also felt floaty as if each combatant was on rollerblades or something to that effect. The only thing that is even more arcade-y than BF games are the entire slew of recent Call of Duty titles.
So on one side you have arcade-type shooters like the Battlefield and Call of Duty series’, and on the other you have more realistic ones such as Squad, Post Scriptum, Ground Branch, and the ground-breaking Escape From Tarkov.
When I’d first laid my eyes upon indie developer, The Farm 51’s, new military-themed shooter titled World War 3, I immediately thought back to BF 2. Its trailers showcased military personnel moving out in transports, a commander-like overhead display, aircraft dropping ordinances from above, and other exciting military goodies to slobber over. It effectively suspended my disbelief at the notion that today’s video game trailers usually boast much more than they can eventually deliver.
My first attempt at playing World War 3 resulted in staring at the loading screen for ten-plus minutes; one time I think I even waited twenty minutes before throwing in the towel due to utter frustration. When I searched online I found that I wasn’t the only one experiencing this problem and in fact it was quite widespread, resulting in many a sarcastic gamer to label World War 3 the “Loading Screen Simulator 2018.”
When I did happen to finally get into a game I played World War 3’s only mode so far, oh-so-originally titled Warzone. I began on one of the only three maps available at this point, Berlin, which was a mid-sized war-torn digital replica of the actual German capital. The amount of detail put into the blasted city was very impressive. But things changed as soon as I started to move…
World War 3’s movement speed is the opposite of realistic shooters such as Escape From Tarkov and Squad. In other words, if you’ve played any of the recent Call of Duty or Battlefield games you’ll be right at home here. Right when I started moving I noticed it felt as if I were running but I wasn’t even sprinting.
As soon as I held L-SHIFT and engaged sprint I was propelled forward like Speedy Gonzalez or the Road Runner. When you run in World War 3 you can pass up the game’s lone two vehicles: Tanks and APCs. In this regard teamwork is further degraded because APCs (which literally stand for Armored Personnel Carriers) aren’t needed for transportation at all.
As far as the gunplay was concerned, World War 3 is very much an arcade shooter. Even if you are sprinting you can come to a full stop, raise your weapon, aim down its sights, and pull the trigger in a millisecond. There is also no endurance system in the game, so while your character can sprint around the battlefields like a track star on crack he also never runs out of breath.
World War 3’s much lauded gun customization system is decent when compared to its rivals, COD and BF, but pales in comparison to ones in such games as Escape From Tarkov. Many of the choices you have on offer are purely cosmetic as well but at least I didn’t see any pink, leopard print weapon skins or cutesy little tassels (looking at you, Rainbow Six: Siege).
There are also only three generic classes to choose from, those being Light, Medium, and Heavy. I thought there would at least be an actual full-fledged character class system on hand, which would offer such choices as Demolitions Expert, Rifleman, Medic, etc.
World War 3 is a great game if you’re more into hyper-fast, shoot-from-the-hip, Rambo-style shooters where everyone runs off on their own. There’s no voice communication system in-game so squads can’t talk to one another. I’m sure its target demographic, which seems to be tweens or younger, will enjoy bragging about their kill/death ratios and tea-bagging folks until the next shiny new bauble captures their severely limited attention spans and they run off for that. I’d recommend getting World War 3 on sale if you’re into this sort of game.
SCORE: 67%
World War 3 features great graphics that make its first-person shooter gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
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