The History Channel - Civil War: A Nation Divided (PlayStation 2, 2006)

Civil War: A Nation Divided is set during the American Civil War which took place between 1861 to 1865. This is the classic struggle between the Northern Union Armies and the Southern Confederate Armies. Civil War is a first person shooter type game where you'll play as both a Union and Confederate soldier in twelve of America's most legendary battles including Gettysburg, Bull Run, and Antietam. The game was released by Activision in conjunction with the History Channel and is the only first person Civil War Shooter thus far released on the PS2 platform. The game's controls are very similar to Activision's very popular WWII first person shooter series "Call of Duty". That, unfortunately, is where the similarity ends.

Civil War has lots of problems which hamper the overall game experience which could have been exceptional but ends up being just average. For any Civil War history buff this game will be quite disappointing. As a quick example the game starts off in 1861 and the infantry soldiers (north and south) are armed with repeating rifles and hand grenades. Repeating rifles were not made available until very near the end of the war and I won't even comment on the grenades. As far as the story line, well, there really isn't any and even if there was the North wins regardless of your actions. The short video that plays before each battle is quite basic, although some of the pictures and maps are interesting, but the narration itself is dull.

Civil War is basically a lot like most other first person shooter games except its a lot slower and more frustrating. The weapons don't aim well and the computer doesn't register hits on your enemies even when you're in close. The hand grenades don't help as you can't throw them far and they don't seem to do a whole lot even when they explode next to someone. You'll start off each level with an objective, other than firing shot after shot at the enemy without hitting anything. These objectives include everything from the classic blowing things up to stealing top secret documents or just finding a fellow officer. The objectives are fairly straight forward and easily accomplished if you just stay low and keep behind cover. However, it becomes frustrating while in a battle when the enemy starts shooting through wagons and trees where you can't even see them let alone return fire. I also thought the graphics were clunky, the voice overs dull, and the battles quite slow.

Civil War does have some positives. The best of which is that someone finally put out a war based first person shooter that doesn't take place during WWII. Some of the battle scenes were also impressive as were some of the background scenes. Its nice seeing Activision taking a chance on a game like this but its unfortunate this was the best they could do. For a better war based first person shooter try either Medal of Honor European Invasion or the third Call of Duty installment. Both are done very well and have excellent and realistic graphics, great sound, and fantastic game play.