Brigade E5: New Jagged Union

This is a joke, right?

I don't even know where to begin. I've played many video games in my time, across numerous platforms. From NES to the new Nintendo Wii, from Intellivision to Xbox 360 - and I can say without exaggeration, that this is one of the worst games I've ever played. Everything about it screams "I'm under a deadline! I really need at least 3 months to write the script, debug the code, render beautiful art, and record inspired voice work. But you know what? My kid has really been nagging me to play catch with him. Let's just wrap up the whole development cycle sometime this weekend. Is that good for you folks?" And undoubtedly the collective response from the entire development team of two people and a monkey would be a mixture of various grunts and applause in affirmation.

Set in the small fictional country of Palinero, Brigade E5 forces players to create a squad of mercenaries to keep the country from falling into the depths of a civil war, and ideally keep everyone from killing each other and destroying all the ugly buildings. The player is afforded the opportunity to experience the game from three differing viewpoints of the civil strife. The developers, Aperion, decided to implement an "innovative" combat system called Smart Pause Mode, whereupon the action is abruptly halted when the player must make some sort of tactical decision. Not only is this jarring to the action, but it also seems completely arbitrary when the game chooses to "smart"-ly pause. One of your mercs might be in the midst of firing off one of the game's many weapons, only for the game to pause four rounds into a clip.

The game starts off somewhat promisingly through its pre-rendered introductory movies. It appears as if the developers have put some thought into the background story and have every intention of immersing players into a fiction, beautifully realized world. Boy was that na¿ve. The moment the animated characters open their mouths, you're treated to a lackluster display of voice-acting talent. I could honestly visualize in my head the voice actors' darting eyes as they held the script in one hand, and reached for the door to the hallway with the other. This is typical of the game, the idea that everything was simply rushed out the door as quickly as possible, without actualizing any of the game's alleged "features".

Beginning with the tutorial would often be the smart way to jump into a new game. I'm not sure if it's a blessing in disguise, the tutorial is merely text based, forcing the player to read a bounty of information on how to use the awkwardly designed camera controls and interface. It almost seems like the developers assessed what works in most RTS games and then went backwards to undo any real sense of control or immersion. The interface is unnecessarily complex, often making it difficult to understand what is going on, let alone how you're going to complete the mission's objectives.

After suffering through the marginally helpful tutorial, I ventured into my first mission. I had just been ejected from my jeep and needed to rendezvous with a fellow mercenary outside an enemy base. This is where everything falls apart. The game has a unique blend of Real Time and Turn Based strategy that seem to cancel each other out and create some sort of dark matter, sub-atomic anti-game. Ok fine that doesn't really make much sense, but neither does the interface. The commands are executed simply enough - the player clicks where the character should go, on whom he should fire, or by what he should take cover. The cool part is you don't need to click once for a set path, you can make multiple points for a complicated movement, including firing or taking cover. This is great on paper, but a combination of poor path-finding and faulty AI make the game difficult to play.

The incredibly irritating techno-heavy metal music starts pumping as two enemies approach. It appears as if I can take cover behind a tree twenty yards away. I click. Oh snap! Halfway there the game decides to pause and asks me to make another command decision. How about you finish going where I told you to, punk? A few more steps and I'm behind the tree, taking out my assault rifle, and preparing to dispatch some enemy that appeared out of absolutely nowhere. As I ran to the tree, the enemy decided to lay face down in the mud, without any cover whatsoever, and point his gun forty degrees away from me. Popping out from behind the tree, the aim meter slowly climbs to 100 and my mercenary fires at the enemy some 15 yards away. Bang bang bang - Pause. Yes, I would like to fire again. After clicking four more times and emptying half a clip, the enemy is still alive and well in the open. Frustrated, I decide to rush him - despite the fact he has a dominating position and could put five bullets in my face as soon as I leap out. Not so much. I run right up to him as he keeps sporadically firing at me. In a shocking turn of events, whilst lying, he turns around and begins to crawl away. Pause. Bang bang! Sweet I shot him in the ass and now he kind of slumps to the side a little bit. I'm not sure if he's readjusting his boxers or bleeding to death. I'm not really sure I care either.

Sometimes if games have absolutely breathtaking graphics, one might be able to overlook various other shortcomings. Unfortunately there really is no saving grace for E5. In most places, Goldeneye for N64 puts this game to shame. The textures are terribly low-res, buildings are preliminary boxes that have some windows cut out, trees are comprised of triangular prisms and other offensive shapes (to the eyes, that is). The cliffs are comprised of right angles, with virtually no smoothness to be found anywhere. It gets worse. By zooming the camera out and getting a bird's eye view of the level, there is an infinite blue horizon. The developers were too lazy to render appropriate skies or backgrounds, so instead the player is immersed in what seems like a level-design program.

To the developers' credit, Brigade E5 does make an attempt to implement RPG-like stat-building elements into the game, in an effort to draw the player closer to his created characters. There are various specialists, like demolition experts, snipers, and fighters. Alas, even with these attempts, there is a substantial void where satisfactory gameplay should reside. Consequently, the game is a lost cause in the end.

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This is a joke, right?

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