7.62 High Caliber is the tactical action RPG from Apeiron and 1C Company that is a sequel to the very disappointing Brigade E5: New Jagged Union. I was able to obtain a copy of 7.62 and check out its features and graphics with pretty impressive results for a game still several months from release.
Apeiron is developing 7.62 High Caliber and 1C Company is releasing it September 30, 2009 but they do have a preview of the game out and it looks good. When you start up the game and jump into your first setup you will start with a new character and get to choose from several personalities.
Once you choose your mercenary you can adjust some of the abilities such as firearms proficiency, sniper proficiency, knife work and other skills. Each skill leads your character toward the abilities you want for a pretty good start at a role playing type game with flexibility from the beginning.
When you level up you will add more points to this ability system to gain even more proficiency in the area you want so the RPG portion of the game works well. The character starts out with some basic gear like a pistol, some ammo and a few other things and can carry a few items.
As you start the game you’re given your first assignment and can pick and choose others along your way such as finding someone, delivering a letter or message and other simple tasks. The hardest part of any of these tasks will be finding where you’re supposed to be doing these things as sometimes they tell you the name of a person and the town in which to find them but you have to roam around and guess where they may be.
This means some leg work and moving from town to town is pretty easy, your character has a simple menu and you can open up a map with controls to show towns available for you to travel to. Click on the town and your character will start trekking there, sometimes being interrupted by an encounter along the way but you can speed up time to get there quicker.
The encounters are random and you can handle them anyway you wish, total violence or trying to negotiate or just run away but running may not work as they may come after you and the scene will not quite until it is resolved. The graphics for these encounters and the towns are pretty much the same with some very good looking scenery with plenty of good textures.
There’s no simple blue world beyond the town here like in Brigade E5, backdrops have been realistically added to create a world environment even though you are limited in movement to a certain area of each map. The environment from trees and bushes to buildings looks realistic and good with plenty of attention paid to weapons and small details.
Your character also looks pretty good with plenty of detail for things like accurately holding weapons in various positions and your backpack that looks loaded and lumpy. Yes, you do get a backpack and other convenient equipment carrying items such as ammo pouches and belt bags that all show up as places to carry your equipment.
This is about the best part of the game and the great feature has continued from the first with a wide variety of weapons, ammo and equipment as well as being able to realistically carry it all. You can load down your mercenary with gear as well as truck around equipment in a vehicle that will be able to carry more as well as being able to stash weapons and such in various areas to find later.
I really enjoy being able to load a vehicle like a jeep with gear and having my pick according to each situation I find myself in. But be careful how much you load down a vehicle and more importantly yourself, you do move slower with more gear so you have to balance what you carry with how you move.
You can also command several mercenaries at a time from the 30 available ones but I am not yet sure how many, this and other features have not been released by the company. 7.62 is still in development but the game was great to see the good graphics and such but some things just were not finished or available.
The game proves to be easy to play and well made so far and it looks great, the atmosphere is one of jungles and small towns in a South American third world country. Your mercenary can pack a lot of gear but all that weaponry won’t amount to much if you don’t keep your cool.
The pause system that worked well with the first game is here as well, Smart Pause Mode stops the game and starts the pause just as if you pressed pause when anything vital occurs. I found this system handy when handling fights so you would not get in a rush and make planned moves instead of trying to react to what was happening in game.
You can turn this feature off and go in real time as well as set various situations that will pause the game so it gives plenty of flexibility in its use. It’s just a nice feature to slow the game and action down to a manageable stride when playing so you don’t have to keep repeating sections when too many things are happening, if you want to use it.
Other features of the game like talking with others, your journal and interface all work well and have plenty of helpful sections like the journal and being able to read your current missions. The interface looks good and not cluttered with some handy sections like various stances, gun positioning and quick use items for easy changing of things in your hands.
The interface as well as other parts of the game look good and this sequel is a pretty good looking improvement over the previous game from the Brigade E5 series. 7.62mm High Caliber looks to be a good game and plays well even this early from its release date with some good looking graphics and nice gameplay.
I had no problems with getting some of the missions done like finding a man and bringing his head in when tasked to do so and even got a few other missions done as well. The game has a nice save system as well with a save at the start of any confrontation as well as automatic saves periodically so you should have plenty of chances to change situations when things don’t go your way.
7.62 High Caliber looks to be an interesting role playing tactical game with plenty of weapons and equipment choices and good looking graphics. I look forward to the full release of 7.62 as it looks like all the problems and things that were missing from Brigade E5 have been addressed here.
