Review of Beyond Enemy Lines Remastered
Review of Beyond Enemy Lines Remastered
There were hints to Beyond Enemy Lines – Remastered Edition’s horrific nature. We hated Strike Force 2: Terrorist Hunt and gave it a 1 out of 5, but we didn’t realize it was from Polygon Art. According to our review from last year, James Bentley gave Beyond Enemy Lines 2 a 2/5. We’re going back to Beyond Enemy Lines, the beginning. Because returning to your studio’s initial game guarantees gold.
“Stealth is vital in Beyond Enemy Lines”, says the greeting screen, which sounds like an apology. “Go slow and tactical”. Start thinking about what makes a decent stealth game. The capacity to hide? Hideable enemies. Levels have hiding areas and various paths to avoid attacks. A melee button to kill foes quietly. Disconnect and beware of alarms. Those are the essentials.
I think you get the point. Beyond Enemy Lines lacks them. Not one. It’s shocking.
Beyond Enemy Lines doesn’t want you to sneak, therefore you can’t. You may wear your ghilly and quietly go up to a complex, crouching behind bushes, but a Russian voice will shout and start shooting you. The AI only has one preset, ‘do random crap’, which unfortunately includes seeing and shooting past barriers. When foes act like drunk MCU Vision, best-laid strategies will fail.
When a stealth game is almost linear and full of adversaries, what do you do? Cheese it, of course! The first warning didn’t mention it. You fire through your scope to cause enough damage before your rounds run out, standing far enough away from foes to avoid being seen or shot (credit the bizarro AI). The next soldier, then the next, as they stand there wondering who is massaging them hard. After the coast is clear, you enter and play “did they drop enough bullets to make up for what I just sprayed at them?” Then roll a die to determine whether shotgun-man comes and kills you instantaneously.
This method is the only option. No further crowd-control tools are provided. You could press RB to switch to the shotgun and try to kill them close up, but you won’t see this coming! The shotgun’s one-shell reload takes as long as an egg to cook, and it causes little damage. Visit town, soldier! When they spot you (and getting in their faces with a shotgun is one method to gain attention), enemies are pinpoint accurate and will kill you in seconds. There are few health packs, no health regen, and death. Wait for it… returns you to the level’s beginning and lets you view cutscenes! It’s enough to make you quit reviewing games.
