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Looks like another fun and rewarding first-person shooter experience from Burut.

Ubersoldier is the upcoming First Person Shooter from Russian developer Burut. The preview version I played did not have an English voice track yet so I started out pretty much guessing at the storyline. The later cutscenes had subtitles so I was able to pretty much figure out what was going on.



Ubersoldier is set in World War 2 – I know, I know, shocking. Thankfully Burut actually adds a unique twist or two to differentiate this title from the countless other games in this overcrowded genre.

In this game Nazi Scientists are resurrecting dead soldiers and turning them into mind controlled super soldiers -or Ubersoldiers if you will. Your character is a recent resurrection which is liberated by a German resistance movement before the mind control is implemented. You are left with all the benefits of an Ubersoldier without the servitude to the Nazi war machine. Now in league with the resistance you end up setting out to eliminate the Ubersoldier program.

The gameplay provided by Ubersoldier is standard FPS fare. The levels are linear trips through well-rendered yet typical WW2 environments. The levels are full of locked doors and catwalks that lead to nowhere and serve no purpose other than to provide elevated vantage points for enemies to shoot from. The in game events are entirely scripted and serve to further the storyline and update level objectives.



Each weapon is distinct and very effective. They all have the option to look down the iron sights with the secondary fire button which is neither necessary or effective. The aim of the majority of weapons is very accurate without toggling the sight. Once toggled the weapon movement is slower and the weapon model significantly blocks the player's view resulting in an aiming system that is actually more difficult. While the slower mobility and blocked view is made worthwhile in other games that offer it through enhanced aim, the exceptional accuracy of shooting from the hip in Ubersoldier makes the sights needless and not worth the hassle. The exception to this is of course the sniper rifle, which functions as one would expect when using the scope.

A gameplay twist Ubersoldier adds is through a time limited shield system that catches bullets and can either fire them back at the enemy or just drop them to the floor when deactivated.

The last new feature Ubersoldier adds is an easy in game way to upgrade your character. Three headshots within a limited time will increase the duration of your shields, while three kills using the knife within the same time limit will increase the player's maximum health.

Sadly, the enemy AI is not this game's strong point. They tend to huddle around exploding barrels, rush into choke points, and take cover in areas where there is none. One area of particular weakness is the enemy's use of grenades. They tend to do more damage to themselves and each other than they do to the player. More than once I ducked back out a door after being greeted by a group of enemies only to find upon reentry that most of them were now dead from their own grenades. The developers compensate for the AI's lacking intelligence by using them in groups and making them omniscient. The moment the player opens a door every enemy in the room knows where the player is and immediately opens fire.



Playing through the game it becomes immediately clear that Burut is making use of all the latest graphical tricks such as shaders and bump-mapping. The end result is an already decent looking game at this intermediate stage. It won't be setting any new standards, but it certainly isn't lagging noticeably behind the current graphics leaders either. There were no real problems visually, but a few anomalies were present such as colored lights showing through walls. With a couple months between this build and the game's release these wrinkles should be ironed out in the final product.

Due to this build's lack of an English language track for cinematics the quality of voice acting is still unknown. The enemies in game do speak English, but the cutscenes went without speech altogether.

Other aspects of the audio experience are functional, but uninspiring. The music is passable and the sound effects are par for the course.

It is a very good sign that there is over two months between this already fully functional build and the release date of the game. The game is already stable so any time spent on it other than adding additional languages will be for putting extra polish on an already decent game. Look for Ubersoldier to be released at the end of March.

Preview by Nigel Grammer.