The History Channel Civil War: A Nation Divided is a first person shooter set during the Civil War. You play as various soldiers from the North and the South in famous battles. This is the first time I had heard of a shooter set in the Civil War and I was really interested to see how it would compare to other shooters I had played before. Needless to say, fighting set in the Civil War is a much different experience than fighting set in World War II or some far off imagined future, which are the usual settings for shooters.

A Nation Divided is a pretty straight forward first person shooter, the controls are about what you’d expect and the gameplay doesn’t offer a lot of surprises. It feels a little rough around the edges. I noticed a few moments in the game something that I can only describe as “glitchy”. For example, I unlocked the Melee Master Achievement (which touts my skills in hand to hand combat) while I was mowing people down with a Gatling gun. At another point I was ordered to take a rebel emplacement with the rest of my unit. We charged forward and I was face to face with an angry rebel soldier when the level abruptly ended. While these things didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the game, it jarred me out of the experience. I think these things could easily be ironed out in a second outing though, and I look forward to seeing a sequel.

There are two major differences that really separate A Nation Divided from any other shooter that I’ve played. The first are the cut scenes before the missions, and the other is the weaponry used.

I found the cut scenes before the missions to be very enjoyable. Since A Nation Divided is a History Channel game, it is all done in the style of a History Channel Civil War special. I don’t watch a lot of the History Channel, but I immediately recognized the narrator’s voice. The images are all done in sepia toned edges with actual photographs from the Civil War. The maps are all hand drawn, with troop movements shown with big blue and red arrows. Every battle is prefaced by a narration of the historical events leading up to the battle and its overall effect on the war. For example, there are discussions of mistakes made by commanders, the placement of Ulysses S. Grant in charge of the Union troops, and when the war began to turn against the South. The informative parts are added seamlessly into the gameplay, and you don’t even realize you’re learning American history. All of the weapons used in the game are historically accurate, although some less common weapons are used for the sake of gameplay. In order to speed up firing time you are usually equipped with a rifle, that was uncommon at the time, it has a revolving cylinder holding six bullets. That way you can fire six shots before you have to reload. Reloading is an arduous and time consuming task, but it’s visually interesting. Muzzle loaders require pouring in powder, packing in wadding with the ramrod, and dropping the musket ball in. There’s a rifle that holds multiple shots, but loads through a long rod inserted through the stock of the gun. Even the pistol takes a long time to load. You have to load each individual cylinder with powder, and then drop a ball into each one as well. On top of this it’s also a single action pistol, meaning that every time a shot is fired the hammer on the pistol needs to be pulled back. The only thing that prevents you from getting blown away every time you have to reload is the fact that your enemies can’t shoot any faster than you can.

Aiming the weapons is an interesting task as well. By pulling the left trigger you’ll go into aiming mode using the site on the gun, similar to the sniper zoom in a lot of other first person shooters. While this can increase your accuracy, you are still using gun sights from the 1860s. Even the sniper rifle (which looks like a rifle with a telescope mounted on it) can be fairly unreliable. Then when you fire the gun, there is a huge blast of smoke from the barrel that completely obscures your vision. You have to wait for the smoke to clear before you can fire again.

The graphics are pretty good. The character models all look like grizzled Civil War soldiers. The environments are a little simplistic. Some of the clumps of grass you hide in look two dimensional. There are some really nice touches thrown in. At one point I was manning a Gatling gun, holding a trench from enemy soldiers. As I worked the gun back and forth it would blast branches off of trees, eventually clearing out all the brush from the area I was defending.

A Nation Divided does a really good job of setting the atmosphere for you. Explosions are going off left and right, bullets are whizzing past you, and the dead and wounded from both sides are strewn about the battlefield. A few times I was in the middle of talking to someone when they were hit by a bullet. These people would usually have been friends or family, as your unit would have been raised from your home town. It really helps bring home the shock that a lot of soldiers felt during the battles of the Civil War.

Don’t be afraid to expand your horizons a little. Hang out with the less popular kids. They may not have the latest gadgets, but they can still be a whole lot of fun.