Developed in Poland by a staff made up at least partially of folk from the Polish Quake community, Mortyr sought to ask the question, “What if they made Wolfenstein, with technology from the future?” Mirage Media took multiple approaches to this question. On the one hand, Mortyr strongly resembles what might happen if Wolfenstein were made with the 3D rendering and level design techniques of 1999, with all the architectural flair and colored lighting to match it. On the other, Mortyr’s storyline (what barely exists of it) literally involves the Nazis borrowing futuristic technology from the late 21st century to retroactively win World War II. And you, agent Sebastien Mortyr, are tasked with traveling from 2093 to 1944 to ensure that this cannot happen.
What you ultimately get out of Mortyr is a fairly by-the-numbers first-person shooter that feels like a less polished Quake II. There is a lot about the game and its engine that feel as if they’re just barely holding together. The on-screen crosshair is quite a ways further northwest than where your gun is actually pointing, so to ensure that your long-distance shots are on target, you may want to pay attention to when it turns red to indicate that there is a target. Walking and jumping don’t quite feel right, either, with Mortyr sometimes not walking straight, and jumps bobbing the view in uncomfortable ways. The game’s own frame rate fluctuates wildly, even on very advanced hardware, and the game logic and physics are tied to it, so some sections may run in slow-motion while others run much too fast. (Some replacement DLL files, such as dgVoodoo, can at least help with the latter problem.)
But these are the kinds of problems that a persistent player can at least learn to work around. What they can expect to get in return, though, is a series of disjointed levels that nonetheless resemble real locations, from old German castles, churches, and catacombs, to the more contemporary train stations, submarine pens, and arms factories. (Some level transitions spawn you facing the wrong direction, even, but since level exits are one way only, this won’t leave you confused for too long.) These environments are rendered as lovingly as 1999 can afford, with lots of map-designer flexes like archways, breakable stained glass windows, and the occasional reflective floor. If nothing else, Mirage’s engine is capable of some very pretty visuals, even if it needed a lot more care towards the physics and logic.
Mortyr’s arsenal of Nazi-annihilation, beyond his knife and considerably-sized boot, comes divided into two categories. In 1944 (the first half of the game), you will find the usual selection of German small-arms – a Luger pistol, a Mauser rifle, two kinds of machine gun, grenades, rockets, and a flamethrower, none of which ever need reloading. Once you return to the future, by collecting the six scattered pieces of the time machine (don’t worry, a level won’t even let you exit until you’ve found the piece you need from it), you begin to find laser pistols, assault rifles firing explosive bullets, bouncing plasma launchers, mind-control rays(!), and an Aliens smartgun-like bullet-hose called “Gehenna.” The Luger and Mauser still appear in the future; shortly after you arrive, you find them in a museum display case right outside of the laboratory you spawn in. The biggest problem with the future arsenal, though, is that it is meted out to you so slowly that, if you have failed to find your weapons in secret areas, you will not see most of them until the very last level of the game!
This isn’t the only problem with the Future, either. It turns out that 2093 Berlin strongly resembles the planet Stroggos from Quake II, from the dense neon-colored lighting, to the trapezoidal hallways. The Nazis of the future absorb a lot more damage than their 20th century counterparts, and with the aforementioned slow trickle of new guns, ammo shortages in the future are a frequent occurrence. As such, the experience of Mortyr drags heavily by the second half, as gunfights shift from thinking on one’s feet and making use of available resources, to carefully hoarding health packs and laser ammo and finding ways to circumvent a room without spending too much.
Really, if Mortyr has appeal in the 21st century, it would be for the gamer who has already played every other Nazi-smashing first-person shooter there is (and there are an awful lot of them now). To look back on it now, it is perhaps a bit on the shaky side, and asks players to put up with an awful lot of things that don’t really work, especially in the second half. But you do find Hitler somewhere in 1944, yelling at nobody, and you can feel free to empty all of your ammo into him as many times as you like. Some issues can be forgiven for something like that.
