This War of Mine Reviews
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 a powerful and intimate portrayal of war through the eyes of ordinary civilians. An immense weight is put on the value of human life and moral decisions that can put your own well-being at risk. It's a thoughtful and heavy game, but one that's well worth playing.
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.
If I'm being entirely honest, This War of Mine is one of the best all-around games I've played all year. A crisp, consistent atmosphere, intuitive gameplay, and surprising depth create a fantastic experience.
Effectively delivers a strong message about the depressing reality of war, eschewing classic soldier or commander glorification that permeates many games. An emotional, impactful journey, even if the gameplay elements are somewhat simple
In terms of gameplay I found This War of Mine a little tedious and slow. I mostly wanted to hustle through the gameplay parts so I could see the story and my characters develop. It's not an amazing GAME, but it's an amazing experience.
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.
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 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'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.
The reality of war, hammered home through stark visuals and tight resource management, in a game where just surviving another day is winning.
Perhaps the problem is my own, and maybe I'm too content to morbidly tinker with my survivors to push them towards another miserable day. This War of Mine is a game whose simple message - that war is hell, and that we're all capable of being sucked into its moral depths - might be slightly compromised by its strengths as a game, but at least it's a message carried with a great deal more conviction than other, more bombastic portrayals of conflict. That, for certain, is something to be thankful for.
What truly sets This War of Mine apart is its dignity. It doesn't trade in its message for cheap cry-bait, and it doesn't batter you senseless with its despondency. Don't expect to be presented two dramatically contrasting, woefully transparent choices and then watch the game preen itself over how clever it's been. You'll be dropped into a blighted world and be left to figure out your own path, making fatal mistakes and incurring tragic losses before coming to the conclusion that precious few videogames have ever had the nerve to draw…
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.
Frankly, for all the artistic encounters I've had and valued as a gamer, this crosses a major threshold, delivering a valuable experience that doesn't seek to coddle a player's fragile conceptions of purpose and fun. If the lasting impression you receive is unquestionably bleak, you're doing it right. Nobody's going to reward you for even doing that.
This War of Mine is a gripping survival sim, and a great study of survival during wartime and civil collapse.
This War of Mine manages to convey an important message very well. By turning the player into an active participant in the cutthroat rationale of life as an ordinary person attempting to survive a warzone, it encourages a level of empathy only possible through interaction. Instead of simply hearing the stories of people who suffer unimaginable hardship as civilians during war, the audience is asked to inhabit these narratives. When our choices became their choices—as completely awful as they may be—we can better understand the ground-level tragedies taking place across the globe at this moment. 11 bit Studios' greatest success with This War of Mine, it turns out, is in creating a videogame that is profoundly unpleasant to experience.
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.
This War of Mine is one of the most emotionally investing games I've played in years, and it doesn't need a complex set of gameplay systems to be what it is… a great game, and a deep piece of art on the horrors of war. A depiction of things so cruel and of life so horrible that you couldn't imagine these things actually happening, even if you know they do.
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.