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finally, the lesbeeans

okay but seriously this game was short and sweet and I really wasn't sure what I was getting into but I thoroughly enjoyed it

The most interesting thing about this game is definitely the ability to make Paul Bäumer be a dick for no reason. Like when Kat is telling Müller not to be so callous about asking for the dying Kemmerich's boots, and instead of trying to convince Müller to be more empathetic, Paul can be like "actually I think I should have his boots." This is a very funny and terrible thing you are able to do. Aside from that, though, the game more or less reads like a rather dull and very rushed summary of the events of the book with choices thrown in, which is especially apparent with a book as well-written and emotionally-affecting as All Quiet is. You're much better off just reading the novel.

Unfortunately, the writing kinda put me off this one... there were a lot of typos, and the dialogue also felt much too modern at times for the era, nor did the characters compel me particularly.

The comment by red autumn - "tbh, I feel like Emma 'If I can't dance, it's not my revolution' Goldman would not be overly concerned about small pleasures under capitalism..." - probably put it best; because though I really liked the art and aesthetic of this game, I was frustrated with the actual writing - mainly the ending, in which Goldman criticizes the player/creator (since the player more or less seems to play as the person who made this game) for supporting harmful corporations by buying from Amazon. This seems... both unfair and out of character for her. 

It's unfair to blame any individual for participating in capitalism, because as the phrase goes, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. The creator of this game, as well as its players, should not be blamed for purchasing from a corporation in an environment that allows that corporation to become so dominant that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to live without. But it's most frustrating because I'm sure the real Emma Goldman was well aware of this - she spoke of how it was impossible for any person to be free in a capitalist society, and with that naturally comes no freedom to consume ethically. I'm no expert on Goldman, but I do know that the whole reason her paraphrased quote that red autumn mentions above became so inextricably tied to her in the eyes of history is because it represents one of her strongest ideals, controversial with other activists - that wanting to revolt against the system shouldn't mean you must deprive yourself entirely of joy in the life you currently have. So not only is this ending unfair to the players and the creator themselves, it's unfair to Goldman's memory, too. Really, I think Goldman would be sad and frustrated about the current state of the world, like she was in her time - that in the eighty years since she died, there are so many terrible things that haven't changed. But I think she'd blame the perpetrators of this capitalist society - the Musks and the Bezoses, the Wal-Marts and the Apples - rather than its subjects.

I remember this game really epitomizing the kind of writing where you can tell the author has memorized every single military strategy and the specs of every weapon and vehicle in the entire war but focus on this over actually telling a compelling story with human characters. That kind of feels like what's happening here - you are not terribly motivated in what decisions you make, because you feel no real urgency or investment in the narrative. The typos don't really help in this regard...

The number one thing you should know about this game is that despite being on the WWI tag, and despite mentioning the "Kaizer", it is in no way a WWI game. This is a WWII game. The country of this game is so blatantly a thinly-disguised fictionalized Nazi Germany that I wonder if the creator didn't mix up the two wars. The art's actually pretty good, but beyond a single line at the beginning of the game in the main character's father's letter where he says to value love over violence, the writing is... not - and when it's a kinetic novel with no choices, gameplay, or interaction beyond clicking to advance the story, writing is quite literally everything. Here, though, it's very, very on the nose, and the characters aren't terrible deep, and the whole thing feels a little like a 14-year-old who just learned about Nazis for the first time and wanted to make a game about how they were bad. The ending twist was sort of neat, but I wasn't invested enough in the rest of the story for it to be worth the journey there...

I was really excited for this one, but the writing unfortunately just wasn't up to par with my hopes. There were typos, I didn't really connect with the characters, the ending was abrupt (and also glitched? a character died in my run but it said he survived the war with a wounded leg??), and by far the strangest part was the main character speaking in a Southern American accent. Even though he's Canadian. Huh? Is this meant to be shorthand for him being from a small town? I'm not Canadian myself, but I asked my friend who is, and she said she's never heard a Canadian say "y'all" or "ain't" as part of a typical accent there, unlike in the Southern US. This was especially weird, given that Private Bell was a real person, who I suspect didn't speak like that...

I'm not really sure why the steampunk element was in this game other than the ticking clock as an aesthetic...? It didn't come up much, to the point where I often forgot it wasn't just a regular WWI game, and the ticking clock still could have applied even without it. Either way, the writing had typos and I wasn't terribly attached to the characters from it, so I don't really recommend it.

Well, this one did thankfully not call the German forces the Axis Powers like the other one did, but it had the same spelling mistakes and lack of compelling writing.

The writing's not very compelling and has errors in grammar and such, but probably most glaring is that at one point it calls the Germans the "axis". They were. They were not the Axis in WWI.