A shadowy group has captured the early 2000s military sim
Last week I learned that if you serve in the Territorial Army, even for a short time, you get a discount to Disney World. There is some kind of insight here for a clever person to make, something about the intersection between playfighting and realfighting. Perhaps hiding under the camo of each soldier boy, with all their manoeuvres and training and trigger discipline, we are destined to find a little kid playing pew pew.
If we dip hard enough into tactical first-person military sim Dagger Directive, maybe we'll find that inner child. Its genetic material is Tomothon McClancy's Rainbow Six (1998) or maybe more accurately Rogue Spear. The aesthetic is rooted firmly in early 2000s counterterrorism shooters like Soldier Of Fortune. The cursor in the menus is a crosshair. When you quit to desktop it asks: "Do you really want to go back to being a civilian?" This game could not be more Y2K if it came on a free CD-ROM in a packet of breakfast cereal sponsored by the US Navy SEALs.
Yet it's no boomer shooter, not exactly. The simulation elements go surprisingly hard. There are ricochet physics, shrapnel from frag grenades, ACOG scopes with adjustable ranges, and only lying prone will give you a truly steady aim. You will perish with a single hit, and enemies go down just as quick. You can either use nightvision goggles or your scope, never both. There's no HUD to speak of - no ammo counter, no health bars - and reloading a clip that's still half-full is a waste of bullets. Veteran milsimmers are free to turn the crosshair off completely in the settings, although I will not surrender this. A man must have his comforts.
The tutorial mission made me worry there was a problem with the scale in the levels. It's a long empty jaunt from the obstacle course to the firing range for seemingly no reason. Only when I played the real missions did I understand this is reflective of the whole game. Maps are expansive combat zones - snowy mountain ranges, whole towns surrounded by broad prairies, stretches of rural countryside with village after village.