The weapons range from a pistol to a high-powered sniper; there are actually 6 weapons but 5 that you can gain with kills. Make no mistake this is no Counter-Strike or Action Half-Life and plays very differently indeed. The Maps are often either completely open or closed off with limited ability to evade your enemy and attack from different angles. In essence they lack extra routs with which to retreat or assault your enemy from, the ones provided don't tend to be positioned as well as one would prefer. However this has the advantage of keeping the game fairly even, and the gameplay itself is closer to HL Deathmatch rather than Counter-Strike one-shot frenzy's. Not a bad thing, not by any means especially if you are a little tired of waiting for the next build of CS or it's gameplay in general.

We certainly found it to be a refreshing change from the stealth presented by CS or the pure action but easy killings in AHL. It seems like a vibrant cross between the two but in a very different world and it's a lot of fun.

A buggy life

Obviously this isn't a 'proper' review because it's based on an engine we already know, yet sadly this doesn't mean it's also bug free. Some of the bugs manifesting this early release are that of invisible players being able control turrets, spray logos and use flash lights. There are also problems when you try to re-spawn, sometimes even when you only die once you can't get back in until the round ends and then when you do there aren't enough starting points and you get telefragged; A pain if it goes on for ages and there seems to be no round time limit. The biggest of the bugs comes from the fact that occasionally you can't join servers, there is a crude but working fix for this on their website. One of the things we noticed about the maps were the lack of BIG gun turrets or burnt out vehicles as additional scenery, we thought that would have made the game for me as far as atmosphere goes.

The Verdict

On the whole WIE is an excellent mod that shows good use of Texturing, sound, models and of course, coding. It's a lot of fun for those FPS fanatics that are tired of CS or AHL and what something a little different but not to way off and is a welcome extra when the wait for Team Fortress2 is such a lengthy one. In time we have no doubt the bugs will be fixed, more features will arise and additional maps and updates to old ones with point their noses onto some servers.

If you ever wanted to shoot Germans/American/Europeans or be controversial in that sort of way then this is the mod for you. Now get out there and start some new servers so more can see why it's so damn good. One last thing, we thought it was like Mortyr so if you're waiting for that then play this.

by Mark 'KILLZAT' Jackson

Graphics - 9 Sound - 9 Originality - 8 Gameplay - 8.5

Overall - 8.5 (85%)

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