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This type of game has been a long time coming. I suppose the first real attempt was with Airborne Ranger (nostalgia anyone?), and the most recent would be the Delta Force series. Unfortunately one of the major drawbacks of the predecessors was the severe lack of immersion. I am pleased to say that this game has it - total immersion! Sink into your monitor, crank up the volume, and there you are - on the battlefield!
The immersion begins with the soldier David Armstrong - You! - bumming around the base with your mates, when your Commanding Officer catches you slacking off! He thinks it's time for a shake up and begins to run you and your motley mates through some timely battle drills! This brings you to the tutorial phase involving basic movement and firing skills. Shortly after completing this "mission" the plot really thickens and you find yourself in the middle of a war zone fighting for your country (why are we always fighting for the US??) and to stay alive!
The graphics engine is quite solid and is capable of some remarkable view distances, but it does come at a cost. Objects do not have that sharp, defined detail that we have come to expect from games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3. But then their engines cannot render a 1km wide valley with trees, shrubs and 10 tanks with numerous troops, moving through it either. Like I said there is a cost! The engine really is impressive and well suited to the game at hand. Character models are fairly well done and look sharp and fluid from a distance. The only problem is when you get close, they tend to look blocky and lacking in the polygon department. But this is fine, as you can find yourself fighting with and against about 50 of these. Lets see if the Quake 3 engine can do that! One thing that annoyed me was the ability to turn your head like the girl from "The Exorcist"! This doesn't happen whilst driving the vehicles, though, but more on that a bit later.
Vehicle sounds are somewhat muted from the real thing (You can't really talk inside a moving APC!), but as a fair bit of the storyline takes place in vehicles this is understandable! Each vehicle has a different sound and handles quite differently.
Weapon sounds are not that realistic as most of the small arms don't have that "crack" as they go off! Each weapon has a distinct sound that is actually discernable at a distance. After a while I actually was using the sound of the gunfire to sort friend from foe whilst attacking! Forest sounds aren't much chop and walking through trees and bushes is strangely silent! But overall the sound is excellent and adds to the total immersion of the game. I found myself ducking behind the monitor as a bullet "thumped" overhead. a nice sound is that metallic click when you run out of bullets!
Squad control is maintained by the incessant chatter of the radio, and echoed on screen if you like as an option. I used this as it is often hard to remember exactly who said what when, and the text prompts just make it so much easier to remember when you are concentrating on the enemy in your sites.
Squad members will actually perform the tasks that they are commanded to perform, without repeating the orders. What's more, they will perform them in an intelligent manner, removing the need for detailed and specific micro-management. This in itself is a dream to behold. Orders are easy to give via an intuitive interface (after a small amount of practice) and don't distract from the task at hand too much!
Then in-game command system is sleek and functional. The menus slide in from the right and the number keys select the squad commands. The 1-0 keys are set up by default, as the command hotkeys, and are active at different times throughout the missions depending on the context of play. Eg. the hotkeys are different when you are in a tank to when you are on foot as part of a squad. This makes for an intuitive and natural interface, and the initial learning curve is not at all steep.
Commands can be given to individuals or groups via the interface, simply by selecting a sequence of numbers in the menus, and can vary from target selection to a complex sequence of attack orders for an armoured column. In terms of immersive reality and command structure, it enables the player to become totally fixed on the job at hand and simulates the modern battlefield quite well! Reality is also modelled by soldiers executing orders and modifying them to suit the situation. For example, I issued targeting orders to a soldier during an attack and the soldier got up and moved to a better position by running around the back of a building so that he wouldn't come under fire. He then flanked the enemy and used a grenade followed by a rush on the position in order to take the enemy out! All with out direct orders! Amazing!
The interface for the mission editor is simple and efficient as well. This will allow network players to quickly design a mission based on the requirements of the group immediately prior to play. Although not fully tested by the reviewers, mission design can take as little as 2 minutes for more simple missions, to hours for detailed and complex campaign style missions. The benefits are enormous and map making will be common place.
Multiplayer is where games like this really turn into classics, and I can see this becoming just that. With a multitude of game types (deathmatch, co-op, CTF, defend/attack the village, deathmatch/ctf mix, among others), and ease of mission creation, the possibilities are astounding. For our next LAN, Tim's creating a simple jeep-a-thon type mission where there is 1 jeep, and 2 players, driver and gunner, per team, in a simple deathmatch situation (Halo eat your heart out!).
As the American servers come on line after the US release in September, and the game is appropriately patched to allow co-operative campaign play, the multiplayer aspects of the game will shine! Unfortunately, at present, servers are restricted to user set up servers through Gamespy Arcade. It is good that you cannot join part way through a multiplayer game, but that also means that people will not always be able to get a game on a server with a good ping! So I hope that as the game gains in popularity more and more good servers will come on line!
The average rating from the reviewers is 98/100. Only because it can get better and better! This game is great and will go down as a classic game that shaped the game scene for years to come! It has our vote for Game Of The Year, Even if Team Fortress 2 (yeah it is still in production!) was to come out this year! The game is amazing! Race out, buy it and then enjoy hours and hours of fun!
Review by Odd - with help from Tim, Doran & the rest of the FIGJAM Clan