s much as the backwards control, lack of documentation (how the hell am I supposed to know what a Russian PTRS does?), and spotty stealth bring Soldiers down, it’s the sheer tedium of every moment that prevents any enjoyment of the cool features it offers.

For instance, take reloading a tank. There are seven discrete steps to accomplish this menial task, and every single one of them was about as much fun as calculus. Everything in Soldiers is like that – accurate, but painfully boring.

This is a shame, given the potential of this title. The damage models for vehicles are brilliant, cover is implemented really well, and pretty much every piece of the environment can be blown straight to hell. It’s all for naught though, because only the hardest-core war junkie will find the willpower to slog through the vast stretches of boredom to reach the pearls of brilliance hidden under Soldiers’ skin.  

MATT MILLER   4 I hate to score this graphically impressive game so poorly, but after the inordinately frustrating experience I had trying to decipher it, I’m left feeling that Soldiers borders on non-playable. With a dreadful control mechanic, completing any single action in the game is so labored and monotonous it’s hard to ever immerse oneself in the detailed historical account being presented. If war were this boring we’d probably finally have world peace – if for no other reason than the soldiers would be fast asleep.