The History Channel: Civil War - A Nation Divided Reviews

"They ACTUALLY got reloading right!"
History Channel: Civil War- A Nation Divided Review

This game proves the fact that a civil war game is plausible. It can be done, we just need someone who can pull it off, and Activision could not. A solid effort, but no multiplayer, short campaign, not very creative achievements, and mediocre graphics ruined what really could have been great.

I originally bought this game just to see if someone can pull off a civil war game. I figured the guns back then took so long to reload that it would take longer then the game itself. Sure the guns do take long to reload, even in this game, but it is surprisingly manageable. And if you do have to reload during a close encounter, Activision gives you a sword or a knife which you can whip out to take out the last few soldiers before you reload.

So they get the reloading down right, they should be able to pull the game off, right? Wrong. Multiplayer in any shape or form is completely missing. All our hopes of being able to fight online or do a quick battle with a friend is lost. No multiplayer OR co-op at all, and as a shooter this is a vital piece of a game. Without this many get bored quick, as a shooter can't entertain without a cool new feature or a multiplayer mode. And this game lacks both of these.

Graphically, this game is so mediocre it could be put on a last gen console and no one would tell that it belongs in the current gen. Soldiers are easy to identify, explosions are meh, but the environment is so dull! I've almost fell asleep creeping around in the ugly grass while attempting to beat this on hard.

The campaign is also really short. A FPS junkie could run through this in a day, but then will get bored. I understand that it is a shooter which don't often have long campaigns. I do understand that it is based on a real event and that you can't change history. But you could lengthen the battles. I highly doubt almost all the battles in the civil war had you looking for explosives, planting them, blowing something, up finding paper, then completing the level. I was hoping more action. More fields, more trenches. I only remember two or so memoriable field battles and only one memoriable trench battle. I'm pretty sure there were a few more, but they just weren't fun.

Activision got it right with the sound. They got it right with easy-to-adjust to controls. However, they did not get it done with the core gameplay. Although we do have to thank them. They figured out how to get the civil war reloading right. With this, hopefully someday we can get the civil war game we all would enjoy.

This review was originally posted by me at http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/review/R134713.html .

Ok I played the first 3 History Channel games and I must say that THIS is the best of them. WIth that beig said it still kinda sucks.

On the positive side the weapons are authentic in ranges, acuracy, and reloading speed. That could be a negative for anyone who was looking for CoD:Civil War.

I will be honest I first got this game because it was a History Channel game (and their first one at that) which means there would be authenticity behind the battles and gameplay. Living an hour from Gettysburg I liked the idea of reinacting the fight. The game is NOT hard and can easily be completed in a couple days (let me give you a word of advice to avoid the achievements glitching.... use only the pistol and the sword/knife until you get the Pistolero and Knife Master Achievements then feel free to kill with whatever else you have). The objectives all fall under blatant catagories... blow this up... kill these guys... blow these guys up.

All and all this game is an average shooter with no real reason to play it besides the achievements and learning a little battle history between levels. Not really a terrible game (that would be Civil War: Secret Missions) but not a good game either.

Honestly I rented this game for the Achievies, but I couldn't even hold out 10 minutes into the first mission before taking out the disk and deleting the game history from my console.

The game is ugly and very slow, the frame-rate is terrible, and I was hoping the game would play closely to Call of Duty, but it doesn't! From the screen shots of it the game it may seem similar, but it isn't. You have some weird 5-star health bar that never seems to refuel, and there's no checkpoints from what little I played, but instead lets you save anywhere you want (bad), so if you save in a bad spot, your only other option is to start the mission over. Also, expect your weapons to be like they were back then...muzzle loaders that fire single shot, yay. *sarcasm*

I really don't know what else to say about this game... I couldn't even stomach the first 10 minutes of it, it really is that horrible. I strongly recommend you do not buy or rent this game, even for the achievements, because most of them are bugged anyway (so says xbox360achievements.org's Achievement Guide). Thank god I didn't get an achievement or else I'd have this game on my gamercard for life.