edit: Blast in the time it took me to write this rambling diatribe someone managed to write a shorter, sharper & more to the point review of Frontlines. Ah well.
Call of Duty 4, to my great enjoyment, took the franchise out of WW2 Pie eating patriotic territory & into a hypothetical modern areana where although the "allies" were the good guys there wasnt that black/white portrayal of the two sides (see ZP's review). However, if you are one of those types who cannot play an FPS without dripping yourself in patriotic self rightiousness, fear not; because Frontlines gives you that oppertunity.
In frontlines, you are a soldier in the "Stray Dogs," a testosterone spewing batallion of the Coalition armed forces. Due to vast depletions of most of the worlds oil reserves, society is crumbling & the world has formed two major powerblocs, RedStar (Russia & China) & the Coalition (the USA & whoever else "we" are). RedStar invade turkmenistan while your on patrol there & before you know it its all out war & your shooting your way to victory. There is no grey areas, no questionable tactcs. You are the good guy, they are the bad guy & for all the issues back home in the USA out on the frontlines there is no grey area in this regard. They are the ones who use nukes, they are the ones who conscript civillians in a last ditch effort to defend, they are the ones who lose.
Now ive got this far without mentioning gameplay, but before I get onto that stuff I have one more thing to raise about the whole East v West thing. No its not something deep, politcal & ethical; its about the voices of your squadmates. All the main protagonists are voiced by American; & although "the coalition" implies USA + Europe etc the "Stray Dogs" seem very much an American unit. But all your squadmates seem to have steriotypical Americans trying to be English voices. Now I dont know if Americans find such one liners as "aww have they run off for a cup of tea?" or "bloody w**kers" funny, but I just find them annoying.
Anyways onto the game itself. The game is of course a multiplayer game & as with the Battlefield games what story there is is built around the gameplay rather than gameplay around story. Consequently all levels involve you attempting to take a series of objectives in order to move the "frontline" further into enemy territory. I like this system & to its credit as lame as the games story is when actually playing the game it makes a good effort of driving you to push forward to the objectives. While this simple objective system might seem a bit repetative, it still works for the singleplayer & no doubt is pretty awsome in multiplayer.
Well thats how the maps work, but how do you accomplish your objectives? Gameplay is split between fighting onfoot & fighting in vehicles. Since most of the time is spent fighting on foot Ill deal with vehicles first. Simply put, they handle like lard on a greasey slope. Thankfully there is only one mission where you have to drive one, but when you do getting the hang of driving a tank is an absolute chore. For the mostpart however vehicles can simply be used to chauffeur you from objective to objective, so while frustrating they arnt game ruining & if you can get the hang of them they are usefull.
The bulk of the fighting takes place on foot, which is pretty well oiled (though if an FPS cant get that part right what can it do?). Guns handle well (& all sound like chainguns which is quite satisfying) & although the enemy are pretty darn tough it doesnt take too many shots to take them down. On the subject of enemies, & the AI in general, as the game progresses it becomes increasingly frustrating to have squadmates to fight alongside. The enemy AI isnt bad, though they employ the spray & pray technique most of the time, & it seems their prayers get answered as they seem to have pretty deadeye accuracy. Of course you arnt fighting alone so this shouldnt be such an issue, except your squadmates are of no use whatsoever. They dont do anything unless you are there, indeed they even pull back from taking objectives if you die. They shoot bullets all over the place but few of them ever seem to reach their target. Indeed their only real use is as distractions to the enemy, though the enemy seems to realise you are the priority target so be carefull raising your head. Finally, both ur allies & enemies seem to respawn completely irratically, youll find friendlies appearing deep in enemy territory & enemies spawning in areas you just cleared. It gets frustrating at times, though it is bearable.
An added dimension to the combat, & one thing frontlines had been promoting prerelease, comes in the form of combat drones. They come in several roles; a scoutdrone (that can be detonated), a rocketspewing helicopter drone; a minigun fitted antiinfantry drone, & an antitank RCD that detonates itself taking the tank with it. While you only have to use a drone for part of one of the early missions, when available they can prove very useful, paticularly in the later levels. While not a gamemaker in itself the drones are an interesting & fun added layer to the gameplay.
So in conclusion Frontlines singleplayer campaign is a pretty decent experience. It doesnt justify buying the full game, though it certainly isnt something to ignore if you have the game for the multiplayer (which since its a multiplayer focused game is really why you should be buying it). The story is almost sickeningly "patriotic" but the gameplay itself is pretty fun. Since Frontlines is meant as a multiplayer game, I dont think this review should be used to decide whether to buy it or not. But what I am trying to say is that if you do have Frontlines, the singleplayer campaign is worth playing, if only as something to do between bowts of multiplayer carnage.
Call of Duty 4, to my great enjoyment, took the franchise out of WW2 Pie eating patriotic territory & into a hypothetical modern areana where although the "allies" were the good guys there wasnt that black/white portrayal of the two sides (see ZP's review). However, if you are one of those types who cannot play an FPS without dripping yourself in patriotic self rightiousness, fear not; because Frontlines gives you that oppertunity.
In frontlines, you are a soldier in the "Stray Dogs," a testosterone spewing batallion of the Coalition armed forces. Due to vast depletions of most of the worlds oil reserves, society is crumbling & the world has formed two major powerblocs, RedStar (Russia & China) & the Coalition (the USA & whoever else "we" are). RedStar invade turkmenistan while your on patrol there & before you know it its all out war & your shooting your way to victory. There is no grey areas, no questionable tactcs. You are the good guy, they are the bad guy & for all the issues back home in the USA out on the frontlines there is no grey area in this regard. They are the ones who use nukes, they are the ones who conscript civillians in a last ditch effort to defend, they are the ones who lose.
Now ive got this far without mentioning gameplay, but before I get onto that stuff I have one more thing to raise about the whole East v West thing. No its not something deep, politcal & ethical; its about the voices of your squadmates. All the main protagonists are voiced by American; & although "the coalition" implies USA + Europe etc the "Stray Dogs" seem very much an American unit. But all your squadmates seem to have steriotypical Americans trying to be English voices. Now I dont know if Americans find such one liners as "aww have they run off for a cup of tea?" or "bloody w**kers" funny, but I just find them annoying.
Anyways onto the game itself. The game is of course a multiplayer game & as with the Battlefield games what story there is is built around the gameplay rather than gameplay around story. Consequently all levels involve you attempting to take a series of objectives in order to move the "frontline" further into enemy territory. I like this system & to its credit as lame as the games story is when actually playing the game it makes a good effort of driving you to push forward to the objectives. While this simple objective system might seem a bit repetative, it still works for the singleplayer & no doubt is pretty awsome in multiplayer.
Well thats how the maps work, but how do you accomplish your objectives? Gameplay is split between fighting onfoot & fighting in vehicles. Since most of the time is spent fighting on foot Ill deal with vehicles first. Simply put, they handle like lard on a greasey slope. Thankfully there is only one mission where you have to drive one, but when you do getting the hang of driving a tank is an absolute chore. For the mostpart however vehicles can simply be used to chauffeur you from objective to objective, so while frustrating they arnt game ruining & if you can get the hang of them they are usefull.
The bulk of the fighting takes place on foot, which is pretty well oiled (though if an FPS cant get that part right what can it do?). Guns handle well (& all sound like chainguns which is quite satisfying) & although the enemy are pretty darn tough it doesnt take too many shots to take them down. On the subject of enemies, & the AI in general, as the game progresses it becomes increasingly frustrating to have squadmates to fight alongside. The enemy AI isnt bad, though they employ the spray & pray technique most of the time, & it seems their prayers get answered as they seem to have pretty deadeye accuracy. Of course you arnt fighting alone so this shouldnt be such an issue, except your squadmates are of no use whatsoever. They dont do anything unless you are there, indeed they even pull back from taking objectives if you die. They shoot bullets all over the place but few of them ever seem to reach their target. Indeed their only real use is as distractions to the enemy, though the enemy seems to realise you are the priority target so be carefull raising your head. Finally, both ur allies & enemies seem to respawn completely irratically, youll find friendlies appearing deep in enemy territory & enemies spawning in areas you just cleared. It gets frustrating at times, though it is bearable.
An added dimension to the combat, & one thing frontlines had been promoting prerelease, comes in the form of combat drones. They come in several roles; a scoutdrone (that can be detonated), a rocketspewing helicopter drone; a minigun fitted antiinfantry drone, & an antitank RCD that detonates itself taking the tank with it. While you only have to use a drone for part of one of the early missions, when available they can prove very useful, paticularly in the later levels. While not a gamemaker in itself the drones are an interesting & fun added layer to the gameplay.
So in conclusion Frontlines singleplayer campaign is a pretty decent experience. It doesnt justify buying the full game, though it certainly isnt something to ignore if you have the game for the multiplayer (which since its a multiplayer focused game is really why you should be buying it). The story is almost sickeningly "patriotic" but the gameplay itself is pretty fun. Since Frontlines is meant as a multiplayer game, I dont think this review should be used to decide whether to buy it or not. But what I am trying to say is that if you do have Frontlines, the singleplayer campaign is worth playing, if only as something to do between bowts of multiplayer carnage.
