Combat: Task Force 121
Budget title holds budget fun.
Tags: Combat: Task Force 121 Categories: Reviews, Xbox Reviews
Posted by David Hinkle on Apr 20th, 2005
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Combat: Task Force 121 (title page) | 1 - 16 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Squad-Based Shooter | Yes | ||
Task Force 121 is an elite unit comprised of several soldiers from America’s most elite units. Green Berets, Navy Seals, Army Rangers, and UMSC Recon working together look to stop a radical Marxist from recruiting help in his attempt to sabotage United States’ interests in its own military. With several comrades in high places already throughout America’s armed forces, it’s only a matter of time before there is a coup d’etat.
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In taking up the task of ridding these traitors, you’ll go through several missions that really are quite lackluster in look and challenge. Still, one must expect this with the budget price and vague story of the title. The story feels like some collection of thrown-out ideas for a Rainbow Six game, and with almost no presentation and story progression that holds your attention during the single-player missions, you aren’t going to find any incentive at all to push through.
The artificial intelligence is probably the only surprisingly pleasent thing about the single player missions. Still, it isn’t anything on par with today’s top titles, but considering the small price tag attached – it’s well done. You won’t see any advanced squad-based tactics from clusters of multiple foes, but they know enough to duck behind cover or toss a grenade your way when roaming some of the smaller areas. This all keeps things a bit fresh, but not enough to get past the horrible story.
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You’ll have 9 total weapons at your disposal, yet I doubt you’ll use anything beyond the shotgun. All of these really don’t put forth realistic damage, as the shotgun is almost always going to result in a one-hit kill, even from mild distances. Some of the more destructive-looking assault rifles really only take down an enemy after several shots, despite where each bullet may land. The flawed hit-detection and unbalanced weaponry aren’t only prevalent in the single-player.
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All of this transitions over to the multiplayer, providing a number of gametypes for one to experience these flaws. Offering up split-screen, system link, and full LIVE! support, you can take part in some feverish 16-man battles. While there is a class system in place for multiplayer action, you’ll find that choosing between each class really has no affect on the play whatsoever. The sniper class is just useless, as each of the maps aren’t large enough to even warrant sniping in the traditional sense.
Still, if you’re lucky enough to manage to get a 16-man match going on, the action can get a bit enjoyable, Even with the small amount of weaponry in-game, this variant of the Unreal engine handles well enough online. You won’t experience much lag or teleportation here, but considering all the other strikes against it, this isn’t merit alone to warrant your purchase, even with the small price of $20.
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As stated, the game runs on some variant of the Unreal engine and despite how well it handles in the online world, offline is a totally different story. While that might seem pretty impressive on the box as you glance it over in the store, it really doesn’t feel like you’re playing an Unreal-based title. The game is paced so slowly, it loses all the qualities a title bearing that logo represent. Graphically, the game looks like the first Soldier of Fortune game, with some blocky character models and tons of low-resolution textures. The sound is often muffled, from the enemy speech to the gun fire.
Considering the small price of the title, one might be compelled to actually give this game some thought. Regardless, there are tons of titles with a comparable price that hold way more value both online and off. Even though the game isn’t totally awful, it isn’t reccomended when such games as Rainbow Six 3 and Soldier of Fortune: Double Helix will give you so much more.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Smooth online play |
5.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Hit-detection - Weapons are unbalanced - Poor presentation - No way to utilize the class system online |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Not really something I can say is totally worth every dime spent of the purchase price. | |
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Tags: Combat: Task Force 121
Posted by David Hinkle on Apr 20th, 2005 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
