Gamescom '14: Hands-on with gorgeous WWI adventure Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Fighting for hearts and minds
If I ask you to think of a war game, you'll probably picture yourself staring down the sights of a semi-automatic rifle squeezing off round after round into waves of comically villainous enemy troops.
Take a look at Ubisoft's upcoming iOS port of Valiant Hearts: The Great War, however, and you'll see a far more intimate - and often troubling - portrait of combat.
As we discovered when we went hands-on with the iPad version at Gamescom 2014, the game is less concerned with killstreaks and bullet calibers, and more focused on the human casualties of conflict.
That's not to say that this gorgeous-looking side-scroller is all doom and gloom. In fact, the four characters you control over the course of the adventure will engage in wacky antics like stealing keys from seagulls and rhythmically dodging past cars to the rousing sound of a brass band.
However, these lighter notes are regularly countered by more sombre moments, with the game frequently catching you off-guard with soberingly dark details about the victims of the war.
Valiant Hearts is due to hit iOS on September 4th. In the meantime, check out our hands-on with the game above.
