This War of Mine Reviews
The reality of war, hammered home through stark visuals and tight resource management, in a game where just surviving another day is winning.
This War of Mine tries to give us the barest taste of what it might be like to be trapped behind the lines of a war, with our entire world crumbling all around us. If that feels uncomfortable, if it is no fun whatsoever, the developers have accomplished precisely what they intended to.
It's hard to recommend a game that makes you feel disgusted or upset, but I'm doing it anyway. This War of Mine is great, it just asks a lot from its players.
Though I certainly believe that video games are an art form, there are precious few games that I would hold up as works of art, which for me – in its narrative varieties at least – has something to do with extending one's capacity for empathy or adding depth to one's sense of the human condition. On both counts "This War of Mine" succeeds.
This War of Mine is a depressing look into how civilians caught in the midst of a war have to survive. It's hard, remorseless and soul-crushingly depressing, but it's also a must play game.
This War of Mine is possibly something many gamers *should* experience for a few hours, but would they enjoy any part of it? That’s a completely different question.
This War of Mine conveys some horrific truths about civilian life during warfare, and it does so in a way that only video games can accomplish.
This War of Mine is an eye-opening experience that offers a refreshing, albeit bleak take on war. It's so easy to glorify war these days that you forget about those who are really impacted by it -- This War of Mine is a much-needed reminder of that.
A recommended expansion for fans of the original.
A rewarding experience that will test your moral system, and brings a whole new narrative of war for people to listen to.
Regardless of its shortcomings, This War of Mine is a hugely powerful game. Your reaction to those stark visuals and battles of conscience will dictate what you take away from it, but make no mistake, this is a grim, grim experience, and I'd hesitate to state that any of its content is "enjoyable" in a traditional fashion.
This War of Mine eats away at your sanguine disposition, and yet you are compelled and determined to keep trying to survive. Each fresh start provides new characters, new locations to scavenge, and new obstacles to overcome. As bleak as the world is portrayed, 11 bit studios has a well polished title that does a masterful job of never letting you feel safe in your home and secure in your belongings. No matter how many hours you invest into bettering your situation, it's a constant struggle to survive in This War of Mine.
Using the interactive nature of a video game to great effect, This War of Mine brilliantly conveys this message by forcing the player to not only witness it, but to live it, experience it, and suffer through it firsthand.
Whether you choose to perceive it through a moral lens or not, there's a great tactical survival mechanic driving this game beneath the didactics.
An effective lesson on the casualties of war
Of course, a great deal of impressive work went into the stylised visual of This War of Mine that might not have gone into something destined for a school computer or a museum plaque. Its pencil-shaded graphics touchingly evoke political cartoons and the dreary, dark colour palate of so much war art to sap life and hope from your course of events. Generally in games, the wonderful efforts put into visuals are to add to your enjoyment, but This War of Mine is instead making use of the medium of art to help put its message across - simultaneously establishing a valid place of its own within. This War of Mine blurs the boundaries of artistic and educational exhibition and in doing so demonstrates, significantly, how effortlessly the medium of videogames can lend itself to much more than entertainment, but if you're looking for fun, you've come to the wrong place. The message here is how fragile humanity can be when the comforts of modern society disappear and a question: Do 'good' and 'bad' choices exist, or just survival of the most ruthless? It's hard to score This War of Mine as a game, because you can't win it. You can survive with enough selfish tact. You can also be more community spirited at your own expense, but then if you die will the community fail without you around anyway? This is a poignant and reflective experience, thought through with meticulous depth. The gameplay is very simple, and that's probably deliberate too - the amount of thrill you get playing it will depend on what kind of beast you are.
Where Spec Ops: The Line made me question being The Good Guy, this game made me question just how far off the reservation I was willing to go to preserve life.
This War of Mine's mechanics are so well polished that you will find yourself playing into the early hours of the morning continually thinking "just one more night", "just one more improvement". Everything from the atmosphere to the characters to the gameplay is presented in a unique and fantastic way.
Deep Silver and 11 Bit Studios gives you a dark, unsettling look into the Horrors of War.
Every now and again we like losing because then when we win it's the sweetest victory, though with This War of Mine it probably wouldn't feel like a victory at all