Why would people, in this age of six-month technology cycles and miniscule shelf lives, still be playing a game from three odd years ago?
The answer is because it was that good. Counter Strike, when it arrived, was the multi-player game that revolutionised the way people played games on computers. It allowed a team and a free for all style of play that many found satisfying, and still do. So finally, as we see Half-Life hand over its crown as probably the best single player first person shooter, are we about to see Counter Strike, based upon the same technology, give up its multi-player crown? Barking Dog Studios hope so.
Approaching the multi-player arena with a slightly different stance, Global Ops by Barking Dog, is a class based game. There are six classes of player: commando, sniper, demolitions, medic, recon and heavy gunner. Each one has, of course, a speciality, but the commando is more or less general purpose. This adds an interesting dimension to the game in so far as the player must adapt to the limitations of the chosen class. For example, a sniper cannot carry heavy armour. A medic, has almost no armour at all, but is very fast and is distinctly better at dodging ordinance than anyone else. The recon guy can see further and better, move quickly and quietly, but he’s crap with a general purpose machine gun and can’t defuse a bomb to save his, or your, life.
The setting for all this class warfare is a nice touch. You get to play as any one of several law or military forces, or as numerous terrorist, insurgents and freedom fighters. There is everyone from a few disgruntled workers to the Chechen rebels and the Tamil Tigers to face here lining up opposite everyone from the Russian special forces or Delta force. Variety is here in every option. In the single player mode, when you have chosen your class, you play with bots for your team. This is not as annoying as it might sound as the guys you go in with are fairly clever and can work autonomously. They will not stand toe to toe trading ordinance with some foe till you say otherwise. In fact, they will often defend you when you are down. In one incident, my character was wounded and the medic made his way over with the heavy gunner laying down cover from behind a jeep till he got to me. I was impressed and touched.
Insertions too are not the kind of ‘suddenly appearing in a corner of the map’ affair. You go in a vehicle and are deposited. Not a big thing, but it certainly adds to the realism.
This kind of attention to detail is throughout the game. Though being aimed squarely at the online market, where frame rates are everything, there is a level of eye candy that is impressive. Though nothing akin to the likes of Allied Assault or Wolfenstein, it nonetheless pleases. However, even on a fast connection, I had to reduce the eye candy to dentist recommended levels just to be able to keep up.
Settings are from urban jungles to such far away places as Mexico and the highlands of Sri Lanka. There are stealth and penetrations along with frontal assaults, so the spectrum is covered. The mix of adversaries means that you could be against somebody with a 90 year old Enfield or a laser sited Dragonov. And here is where this game really impressed: The weapons.
The weapons are customisable to a fabulous degree. You can slap on a sight or an extra clip, a grenade launcher or a flash hider to almost any gun. The options for modifications are fantastic. That trusty old AK will be hardly recognisable beneath a welter of sights, range finders, gas ports for grenades and special rounds. It is a pleasure in itself. A down side is that you must be very careful about the type of weapons for each job. Never before has having the right tool mattered so much.
On line, this is a great concept. However, there seem to be few servers out there to support the game, so that its full potential may not to be seen. Nonetheless the connections seem to be made smoothly and remain stable.
A criticism, and I would have to say it is most likely because of the beta code previewed, was the control system. No matter what I did, I could not get a decent keyboard and mouse mapping set up. The old bind I have always used, just didn’t seem to work, so I tried the defaults and if the thing did crash, which was not very often, it was when I was attempting a custom map of the keyboard. I emphasise that this was beta code, but still, for a game that relies so heavily on control and speed, this is a major draw back.
Overall, this is likely to challenge Rogue Spear and its ilk for that co-op play title online. The single player game is satisfying but ultimately feels like a prelude to the real meat of the matter. It is slick, it is pretty, but all this is only potential for now. When it hits the shelves, it remains to be seen whether all that promise of challenging play in nice environments translates into a cult following on hard-pressed servers around the world.
Specs:
- Rating: 82%
- Requirements: Pentium II 450 MHz, 64Mbyte of RAM, 16Mbyte 3D hardware graphics card, 500Mbyte of hard disk space, 8x CD ROM and a 56k modem for online play.
- Price: €50
- Game +353 (0)1-677 3755
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