Deadly Dozen Review (no fat)

Game Description

The number of World War 2 games has taken an exponential growth during the last few months, and this latest instalment of Deadly Dozen, brought to us by the folks at nFusion, tries its best to capitalize on this market trend.

Deadly Dozen Gameplay:

During missions in Deadly Dozen, you get to choose a team of four members, from the infamous crew of twelve men, each with his own specialty. If you're thinking "Commandos", you might want to think again. These guys are by no means meant to be experts; they're just ordinary guys who happen to be totally dispensable.

The men you choose wildly depend on the kind of mission you're performing, and based on what you expect to happen in the mission, you may opt for one team formula or another. Character's specializations include explosives, sniping, health, sneakiness etc. In short you won't find anything amazing if you've ever played any Commandos game.

The missions are incredibly hard. One can have a wild imagination and think that this is because the people you control are not really experts, but you'd really need to have a lot of faith in the game's developers to seriously make a claim like that. The Germans can see and hit you before you have any clue of where they are (also due to the game's rather excessive use of fog. They can also sense you before you open fire on them (if you get too close). They're also far more resistant to bullet fire then you, and unlike your men, they can continue to fire when taking a hit. Now how's that for fairness.

The mission locations are all quite different (think Africa, Normandie, Germany etc.) which adds a little bit more variation to a game that, quite frankly, it lacks a little too much. This damage system is as realistic as they get. Take a couple of bullets and you quickly bite the dust. However, couple this with the fact that the enemies are all-around better then your guys, and that their AI can give you an inferiority complex. All in all, you're in for quite a challenge.

Of course, how you view it does depend on how much credit you want too give the developers. While you can say what we have here is a tough and realistic difficulty level, others can also just think that the NPCs cheat; their knowledge of where you are and the ratio of forces is greatly uneven…as it should be, we might point out, when you are a 4 man group infiltrating enemy bases. Generally, you can feel that this game struggles hard to provide you with a realistic experience.

Everything aside, the biggest flaw is the fact that Deadly Dozen fails to provide any sort of multiplayer option, which probably would have made it very entertaining, and added on a great deal of replay value.

Deadly Dozen Graphics:

This time-waster benefits from some splendid graphics. The outdoors really shine, the trees and the grass look very well and the fog and water also look extremely realistic. However the game does have some rather high requirements for a smooth gaming experience, but of course, that's only if you compare it to computers in its own time frame. Graphics acts a bit sluggish when you're around buildings or more complex objects, but other then that, they generally run quite smooth provided you can ensure the proper hardware for the game to run on.

Deadly Dozen Sounds:

The score is nicely done, probably one of the best parts of the game, and the effects sound very good as well. As an interesting aspect, the Germans here actually speak their mother tongue, no ze Germans talk thank God!, which adds quite a bit of realism to this game.

Deadly Dozen Overall Impression

For a budget title, Deadly Dozen feels quite smooth, it can be too hard for some. Even the annoyingly unfair AI, along with a few glitches in the graphics system, may only just make a few people turn away from this one. The real flaw though is the lack of multiplayer option…all said, its still a recommended time-waster for anyone who enjoys the genre. Why? Read on…

Pricing:

The game currently ships for a retail price of as little as $0.99, which makes it a rather worthwhile buy especially if you enjoy a good challenge.