![]() There were a couple of uncommonly atmospheric attack sequences that hint at what the game could have achieved had it been pushed in a different direction. Still, those scattered poppies I mentioned earlier mean the six hours I spent with 11-11 don't feel totally wasted. Result? A game that could and should have left you feeling bruised, tearful, dazed and haunted instead leaves you feeling like a pillock for investing emotion in its cockamamy narrative. Amazingly, the balloon crash-lands a few hundred metres away from the spot where Kurt happens, at that precise moment, to be facing his nemesis. The war is obviously about to end so, naturally, he decides to fly hundreds of miles across a flak-scourged, fighter-patrolled warzone in a homemade balloon in order to 'escape' and/or find Kurt. Harry, by then a prisoner of war, is in Germany staying with Kurt's wife and child at their idyllic farm. The game's silliest event occurs very near the finish and can't be described without spoilerage (skip to the next paragraph if you'd rather not hear about it). In a Chicken Run-style comedy or a fantasy in the Dark Materials vein, a literal flight of fancy like this might have slipped by unnoticed, but in the magic-free and almost entirely joke-free 11-11, a game seemingly keen to explain WW1 to a generation of gamers who may be largely ignorant of it, it jars horribly. The British plans are secret no longer! Barrett blows his top while you shake your head and sigh like a bullet-riddled observation balloon. Instead of bringing the papers back, the bird inexplicably decides to fly across no man's land and give them to a German soldier (Kurt, a German who joined up in order to locate his MIA son) that Harry had encountered briefly earlier in the war. Harry, a young Canadian working as an unofficial war photographer, attempts, as you do, to lighten the mood of his angry boss, Major Barrett, by using his pet pigeon to retrieve some important battle plans from the Major's tent. It's the eve of the Battle of Passchendaele. Picture the scene (or skip to the next paragraph if you want to avoid spoilers). What I struggle with is that these pets are occasionally given the role of supernatural fate shapers and allowed to meddle with history in a truly outrageous manner. I can just about cope with the presence of Kurt and Harry's pets, a tame cat and pigeon that you sometimes inhabit in order to solve puzzles. What was needed were plot twists so ludicrous they'd make The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe look like Nordic noir. At some point in the design process someone with influence decided that the WWI experienced by millions of ordinary soldiers - millions of ordinary soldiers like my great-grandfather - the WWI you can read about in memoirs and poetry, wasn't sufficiently exciting or memorable. 11-11's problem is that it's usually too busy unspooling a preposterous plot and putting dull words in the mouths of dull characters to create conditions conducive to reflection and empathy. You're not, of course - helpful gravediggers see to that - but I tip my hat to Aardman Animations and DigixArt for implying it. A multifaceted thought crosses your mind - “I'm going to be here all day.” After the third or fourth failure, with mounting frustration you pause and survey the sea of crucifixes. The name of another unknown individual appears. You move to the next cross and press E again. No luck - a stranger's name and unit blazons the screen. Accustomed by now to insultingly easy puzzles, you walk to the nearest makeshift cross, and, when a “this is clickable” icon appears, dab the E key expectantly. Ephemeral memories dlc skin#In the skin of Kurt, one of the two protagonists, you find yourself in a sprawling German war cemetery, searching for a particular grave. One of the tallest poppies grows from shell-scarified sod about halfway through this big budget, big name 2018 adventure game. Let's call them “poppies”, the eye-catching, ephemeral moments in 11-11 Memories Retold when you glimpse the brave, powerful game it isn't but could have been. ![]()
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