Shooters have given players a grand opportunity to glimpse past and future conflicts from the comfort of their own homes. Whether storming the sandy dunes of Mars or storming the beaches on D-Day, Shooters have utilised some classic periods as their conventions lend themselves to those settings, leaving other times for more ambitious projects. In 2003, to tie in with the Civil War epic, Activision and Monolith released a First-Person Shooter, that could put you directly on the battlefield, a game where you could live up to the title of Gods and Generals.

Gods and Generals takes place during some of the most fiercely fought conflicts of the Civil War, you typically play as a Confederate Soldier behind the scenes, on secret reconnaissance and sabotage work. Fighting off scouting parties and guard posts as you help the Confederacy try to turn the tide of battle.

Built on the Lithtech Jupiter engine (R.I.P. Monolith) Gods and Generals appears similar to a lot of the FPS games that I certainly, but you may have played in the mid-2000s. Aside from the No One Lives Forever titles that share the same engine, other shooters do spring to mind. A Civil War first-person shooter, like a World War 1 first-person shooter, is an interesting concept in theory. You might picture long lines of soldiers firing at each other, in an open field clogged in smoke and terror. Being based on N.O.L.F. 2’s engine, the game takes some elements from that vision and spins them on their head. As a soldier in the runner-up’s side of the Civil War, you’re largely a lone wolf. Occasionally, you have to loot ammo off the fallen soldiers, which puts the player in mind of Solid Snake and the On-Site Procurement that is drilled into the player. Completion of objectives awards you experience points that can greatly help you in the campaign, as it did in N.O.L.F. 2.

Also on the application is a summation of some engagements in the Civil War, featuring selected clips from Gods and Generals to try to bring these engagements to life, and not everyone might have had a copy of Encarta. To better sell the experience, effort has been put into the weapons, the ball-baring-based rifles operate a lot differently from the standard carbines and machine guns you may be used to. Single shot limited ammo that takes a while to reload, while the terror sees an opposing soldier in the face as he is trying to load his rifle too. Alternatively, you can go for the cutlass and get up and personal, it’s a unique experience, especially in games of the time.

Gods and Generals have the difficult task of trying to gain a bang for the buck while also trying to advertise a film and not undermine it. Making use of an espionage-based engine to tell a different tale, that some players might not find as palatable. Despite its problems, Gods and Generals makes for a memorable game, not just because of its status as a tie-in. Perhaps the lessons learned from this game could help the Civil War shooter to rise again.

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