Force Recon Review

Anannya Sen ’s Review

Point and click

Force Recon is a team battle game. One of those games where you have a few different types of team members (sniper, bomb disposal, soldier) and they have to work together to get through various situations, each one being best employed depending on what you come up against.

Except that in this game it doesn't seem to matter so much. The one guy you specifically need for some situations is the explosives expert. There will be times when you have to plant bombs or dispose of some. Apart from that, it's entirely up to you to decide which of the other two (sniper, soldier) you use to take people out. But just remember that the sniper only has a limited number of bullets and there's no ammo to pick up.

The soldier obviously has less range than the sniper but far more bullets. Annoyingly later on the enemy will wander up to you and stop just outside your range and start shooting. This means you have to move closer to them, which can be tricky / annoying when you're getting peppered with bullets.

There isn't really much of a stealth element to this game, in fact the enemy soldiers are better at it than you, as some of them hide in doorways. The objectives move around a fair bit, so if you are making your way through a town you may have to come back the way you came later on. That means it's best to take out people whenever you can, including those manning the gun turrets. If you approach them from the side, you should be able to do this easily.

The game is set in WW2 so in between levels, there is some reasonably historically accurate scene setting. There's also a plot which isn't expanded upon too much, but has some intrigue about it. The missions are pretty similar, you usually take out as many soldiers as you can and head to the required check point. The screen doesn't move until you get to a certain area, so this can be quite frustrating if you want to see where to go.

And speaking of frustrating, in addition to not always being able to save mid level (not sure why you can on some and not on others) or at checkpoints, the characters don't roam around together. So if you move your soldier to an area and want to bring along the sniper, you have to go back to where they are and then move them as well. There are certain checkpoints where you get a little bit of mini animation and all 3 members will have arrived together, but these are few and far between.

Also, as I mentioned the screen doesn't scroll fully to the checkpoint so you can't see who you need. In most cases, you can take anyone to the checkpoint to progess, but there are some instances where you need a specific member, such as the explosives expert. This is denoted by the little image above the checkpoint (took me a while to figure that out), but as you can't see the image until you get there, you may well have brought the wrong person.

The game blurb mentions movies in the game, but I didn't really see anything that could be described as this. At some checkpoints there are small bits of animation, like turning up somewhere together, or shooting some soldiers to free some hostages, but not what I would call movies. Graphically the game isn't great, and while the colour and style are pleasant to look at, the lack of detail and also the slowness of the animation give the game a somewhat dated look. Sound is supposed to be in the game, but apart from the menu music, there wasn't any other sound I could hear. Weird. Controls wise, it's a standard point and click with the # key used to change characters.

As you progress through the game, the characters abilities will improve. The sniper will be able to heal people (unlimited number of times, but there is a waiting period in between use) and the range of your characters will increase (apparently through taking courses during the war??). Every once in a while you will get a driving level to break up the monotony of the normal levels. These are fun but a bit easy. Speaking of which, there are 3 levels to get through in the campaign and even the easiest level gets tricky late on. So a slightly better learning curve would have been good.

The game isn't bad, but unfortunately for me, nothing stands out. Graphics and sound are below average, the gameplay has been done to death before in other games (and better too) and the game has some flaws which need addressing. If you are really into war games or team combat games, then have a look, otherwise I would go for something better.