Isonzo Review

ign.com:

There are historical first-person shooters that attempt to capture the precise texture of their era — the limits of the technology, the archaic military traditions, the hierarchy of command. Then there’s Isonzo, a World War One shooter where you can drink from a canteen to briefly erase your stamina threshold, which allows you to sprint around the rugged warzones of Italy with reckless abandon. A comrade on your flank might bolster those efforts by blowing a whistle to inspire his compatriots, making them resilient to the hail of gunfire pouring out of the regiments encamped across the valley. This playful approach to the Great War is soaked with twitchy trigger-pulls, game-altering bombing runs, and goofy, video game-y perks, makes Isonzo approachable to even the most casual participants. It's a philosophy that fills it with moments of bright, airy fun, even if some of its turn-of-the-century flourishes feel like window dressing for what is, at its core, a fairly standard FPS.

Isonzo is the third World War One game developed by Dutch studio Blackmill Games. The previous two, Verdun and Tannenberg, document the action on the Western and Eastern fronts, respectively. Isonzo shifts the action to the warmer climates of southern Europe — the Adriatic highlands, specifically — which was the site of several clashes between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Like both of the previous installments, Isonzo is played across large-scale, Battlefield-style engagements over a constellation of contested control points. Blackmill has done a great job of beautifying the apocalyptic dregs of the combat. The granite Dolomites pierce the sky above our lowly soldiers, while crystal blue rivers babble over vertigo-inducing