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Author	+Zem
Views	2084
Date	05/04/2004
Time	05:04:07AM

CT: Special Forces
- the CT is for counter-terrorism or -ist or something

I actually bought this game because the guy at Gamestop (whom I affectionately call "Asshole") told me it was just like Metal Slug. Maybe I'm being unfair when I compare it to that and Contra III, both of which are fine examples of sidescrolling shooter games. Maybe this game is actually in a different genre entirely. I'm not sure what genre that might be, but it probably includes the word "boring."

I went to your mom's snow covered mountains

Note to aspiring terrorists: this is probably a bad idea.

In any case, the game starts out by informing you that you're a part of a special forces unit deployed to eliminate terrorists. It doesn't say anything specific about the terrorists, but the first level seems to take place in some "snow-covered mountains" somewhere in that big continent. Okay, I never took a geography class, and I don't feel like finding a map to look at, but I'm just going to assume that's Russia. It's snowy and all the important people are wearing fur. So evidently, the Russians are harboring terrorists. I have no idea whether "Hip Software" has informed the government on this important new development.

When you start the level, your special forces manager guy tells you that you're trying to capture a big man with a briefcase. See, he carries plans in the briefcase. Weapon plans. You're supposed to destroy a weapon or something too, apparently, but I didn't get that far. Your character makes some useless comment about not needing luck, and you're on your way.

Ducking makes a cool-but-useless laser sight appear on whatever is directly in front of you...

And it also renders most of the enemies completely harmless

You can aim in a total of two directions, and this is one of them

Now the game actually begins. Your character drops in on what are admittedly some very snow-covered mountains, and a large arrow appears pointing to the right, bearing the word "Go". Unfortunately, you don't collect two hundred dollars for passing (rimshot). Now you figure out the controls. Left and right make you move in their respective directions, up makes you aim at a strange angle which is not entirely unlike "up," and down makes you duck. Ducking is the most useful maneuver in the game. While you're ducking, the shots of most of the terrorists in the level pass right over your head. These terrorists are unable to shoot at different heights. (There are "advanced" terrorists who shoot a little bit lower than the "normal" terrorists, thus hitting you even if you're ducking. Through painstaking research, I discovered you can avoid these low shots by jumping. This is definitely a strategy that should be explored further.)

Anyway, the buttons are mapped as follows: A makes you jump, B makes you use whatever item you have equipped (read: shoot), L switches weapons, and R throws grenades. The major gameplay problem becomes apparent when you experiment with the "shoot" button, and that is this: you have a slower rate of fire than an asbestos convention in Alaska.

See that counter in the upper-left? That's how many bullets you have for your rapid-fire weapon. I wish I were kidding.

I'm sure that seems nitpicky, but think of Contra III. The fun in that game came from the sheer intensity of having so much happening at once, and to take care of all these things happening - most of which were trying to kill you - you had two big guns with infinite ammo and extremely rapid fire. The slowest weapon was the laser, and even that was faster than your default gun in Special Forces. Thankfully, you can get other weapons.

Well, actually, the only other weapon I got was the machine gun, for which you get twenty-five bullets at a time. You shoot about six rounds per second with this gun, which isn't too bad. It's also much more powerful than your default gun. Unfortunately, it fires off an extra two or three rounds after you release the fire button, which means even if you're playing conservatively it's still easy to burn through all your ammo, forcing you to resort back to your default gun. You have infinite ammo for your default gun, and it takes out most terrorists in three shots, so it's not all that bad... except when you come to one of the "special" enemies or obstacles.

No weapons or grenades? This bunker takes thirty-five shots with your default gun. I counted them.

Every so often you come across a concrete bunker blocking your path. These bunkers don't do anything, they just sit there and are in your way. So as a special operative in a two-dimensional world, your only choice is to blow them up. If there's nothing else going on, this amounts to standing there and mashing the B button until your character has managed to squeeze out thirty-five bullets into the bunker, unless you want to use your good weapons or grenades.

Naturally, I always used my good weapons and grenades, especially later on in the level when you have to shoot at one of these from a narrow platform while a terrorist hits you in the feet with powerful artillery every five milliseconds. Wait, so there is action in the game? Well, this doesn't really test your reflexes, because the mortar, like every other weapon in the game, travels about as quickly as a quadraplegic cactus. He just shoots several of them in close intervals.

So, basically, it's boring to shoot at terrorists, it's boring to shoot at bunkers, and it's boring to get shot at by terrorists. It's slightly less boring to jump off a cliff, which is easy to do before you get used to the quirky level design.

To be fair, there are two things that aren't boring in the first level. One is the big Russian with the briefcase. You can see him standing on a ledge above you, just holding his briefcase and looking around. You might think he has guards or a weapon or irritable bowel syndrome or something, but when you jump up next to him he just straight gives up. He looks surprised for a second, then holds his hands out waiting for you to cuff him. You can either switch to your handcuffs and do so, thus earning an extra life, or just shoot him until he dies. In either case, he kneels over, drops the briefcase, and blinks out of existence, just like regular enemies you kill. Maybe they're poison handcuffs. (I tried cuffing the regular terrorists, but it doesn't work. This makes sense because bullets are cheaper than handcuffs.)

What a pussy.

The other interesting thing in the level happens at the end. There's a big flag, which I immediately figured was the ending point, but I had no idea what to do with it. I walked up to it, and nothing happened. I aimed up and tried to shoot it, but nothing happened. I tried using my handcuffs on it, to no avail. I figured maybe I had fucked up by shooting Briefcase Man earlier instead of handcuffing him, so I restarted. After an extremely boring replay through the level, I handcuffed the Russian and arrived again at the flag. Same problem as before. It turns out I had the right idea by trying to shoot it; it's just that the collision detection only happened at the pole, so I had to shoot it from a distance. This causes the flag to go limp, at which point your character raises his fist in triumph. Maybe it's just me, but that seems counter-intuitive.

Actually, I like this

In summary, this game is boring. I honestly have no idea how they manage to take a game about shooting people and make it boring. I mean, it has serious potential. For one thing, the graphics are decent on average, and most of the sprites are really well-done. Maybe it really picks up after the first level. But I doubt it. The game just gives off a horrible impression of... horribleness when you play it. This may be why Asshole was reluctant to accept the game when I tried to return it the day after I bought it.

A terrorist has a heart attack when I assault his crotch

Overall rating: Squandered potential

*applause* posted by +Chaos
on 05/04/2004 at 10:09:49PM
Wow, you make my reviews look like ass. Good job.

Oh yeah posted by +Zem
on 05/04/2004 at 06:50:30AM
Also, I just read the sole review on GameFAQs. Well, first, look at this page.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/gbadvance/review/28305.html

Two things: One, I don't know why gamefaqs changed their layout. It looks like ass. Two, compare the reader review with the "editorial reviews." Well, I didn't read the editorial reviews, but just look at the scores. Seriously.

In ZokeThe2nd's review, he has pretty much all the same thoughts about the game as I do, except he articulates them better, and he knows more about Metal Slug. Also, it turns out there are only three levels anyway, so I didn't miss out on a lot. Except the minigames.

:tcejbuS posted by +Zem
on 05/04/2004 at 06:45:32AM
I'm not sure where that came from, actually. I think I was thinking of those cacattac things in Super Metroid.

Hu-hah! posted by +Hyena
on 05/04/2004 at 06:10:16AM
Awesome article, Zem. I loved the quadrapilegic cactus remark.