Heavy Fire: Afghanistan

[h2]Heavy Fire, heavier disappointment[/h2] I got this in a bundle with "Reload", which is actually a really fun game and well worth playing. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about "Heavy Fire: Afghanistan". I can't recommend this game. It's not completely terrible, but it's so incredibly average and mediocre that there's almost nothing I can point to as a genuine positive. The only things I really appreciated were the trading cards and achievements, which add a nice little meta-game that I enjoy on Steam. So yeah, if you're an achievement hunter, that might make the game at least somewhat entertaining. Besides being mediocre in terms of both gameplay and story, the game has another major issue. I don't know if other people experienced this as well, but this game made me seriously motion sick. There isn't even an FOV slider, and the camera constantly swings all over the place during missions. It really messed with my head. I'm someone who's used to fast-paced shooters, so it's not like I get motion sick easily. I can't fully explain what makes the movement here different from other games, but the camera feels incredibly unnatural and unintuitive. Combined with the low FOV, it made me feel nauseous after a surprisingly short time. To make it more bearable, I started playing in a 1280x720 window instead of fullscreen, which helped quite a bit. Even then, though, I still felt a little off after just half an hour of playing. This is the main reason I can't recommend the game. It really feels like the developers never properly tested whether the camera would cause problems for players. A simple FOV slider and some improvements to the camera movement could have solved most of these issues. There are also plenty of moments where your soldier suddenly does a ridiculously fast 360° turn just to look at some random scenery, a helicopter flying overhead, or to force a surprise encounter with an enemy carrying a knife. These unnecessary camera movements only made the motion sickness worse. And for context, I was able to play "Hyper Demon" (a game that's practically infamous for melting people's eyesight) without any real issues. "Heavy Fire" though, somehow, was a completely different story. The game also tries way too hard to sell this "cinematic war movie" aesthetic. As a result, everything looks washed out. The colors barely have any color at all, and looking toward the sun completely blinds you, making it almost impossible to see enemies. That's a huge problem because this is an on-rails shooter - you can't move to get a better angle. If the sun is in your face, you're basically stuck. The opposite problem also exists. In darker areas, visibility is just as bad, and it's often difficult to see anything at all. The only reason combat remains playable is because enemies have giant red exclamation marks floating above their heads while they're shooting at you, letting you roughly guess where they are. That's a pretty lame solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. In "Reload", this wasn't an issue at all. Every enemy and target was clearly visible, and the environments actually had some color and contrast. Overall, "Heavy Fire: Afghanistan" is a good example of how not to make an on-rails shooter. Everything feels messy, the gameplay is forgettable, and the only part I genuinely enjoyed was unlocking the achievements. Thankfully, they're not too grindy and don't require multiplayer, so you can earn all of them solo in roughly three hours. [h2]3/10 - An incredibly mediocre on-rails shooter that fails at almost everything it tries to do. Unless you're just looking for a few easy Steam achievements, there are far better games in the genre worth your time (like "Reload" for example).[/h2]