World War II G.I. is another unfortunate member of the Build Engine family

13.11.2023 - 22:47 / destructoid.com

Let’s take a moment to show some appreciation for the publishers who have the guts to keep kusoge available for purchase. Ziggurat. Nightdive. Thank you for giving me a megaphone to cry for help. Hopefully, someone will hear my pleas.

I’ve been fighting a losing battle to try and get Extreme Paintbrawl working on a modern PC. That game has the reputation of being the absolute worst game ever built in Ken Silverman’s wonderful Build Engine. While the engine was home to games like Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, and Blood, it also had a lot more questionable games. Last week, I covered 1998’s Nam. This week, we’re looking at another game by the same developer, World War II G.I.. Maybe next week, we’ll look at William Shatner’s TekWar if I can get it working. Let’s hope not!

Released in 1999 – one year after Nam – World War II G.I. is pretty easy to discern just based on the name on the tin. Once again, we’re taking Duke Nukem 3D’s Build Engine and transplanting it to another place. This time, it’s France during World War II rather than Vietnam.

At least with this setting, it’s one of the rare wars where intervention seemed necessary, unlike the Vietnam War. I still don’t really want to talk about it, though. That’s how exhausted I am from keeping up with the ongoing real-world wars. To sum up the backstory to World War II G.I., it’s 1944. The Axis still have control over most of Europe, and the Allies are launching a seaborne invasion of Normandy, France.

More importantly, the game was developed in 1999, a year after Saving Private Ryan hit theatres. It was a few months before Medal of Honor would start the avalanche of WW2 games that would become a hallmark of the era. The time was right, but there are plenty of reasons why few remember World War II G.I. Heck, at this point, Medal of Honor hasn’t been a household name in nearly a decade.

It’s bold for World War II G.I. to open with D-Day. Medal of Honor: Frontline in 2002 would do the same, and it’s an effective but extremely unfriendly way to introduce players to a game. What makes matters worse is that World War II G.I. did it without thinking it through. It’s not that D-Day is the best way to open a WW2 game, and it’s not that the devs considered how to implement it in a way that gave a good point of entry; it’s here because they really liked that scene in Saving Private Ryan.

It really sucks. This is not just because the Nazis are defending a fortified position but because your squadmates will gladly shoot you in the back. Constantly. You might not even realize why you’re dying, at first. It will probably take some time for you to figure out where you’re getting shot from. But let me tell you, your fellow soldiers really hate your guts.

Thankfully,