Special Forces:Team X Review
Developer: Zombie Studios
Format: 360/PC
Release Date: Out Now
In the world of FPS team shooters, it’s hard to stand out from the crowd without destroying the essence that makes the genre so popular. Special Forces:Team X developer Zombie Studios understands this is a delicate balance. And they do an excellent job but they just tweaked it slightly too much.
Based in a world where nations have given up war as too expensive a hobby, each political move is accompanied by a crack squad of elite soldiers to take out the opposition. But this is not something you will see much of, you will join a lobby and you will be assigned a team and you will do everything in your power to kill as many as the opposition as possible. However, here is where the innovation starts and with one of my favourite additions is the ability to manipulate the world you play in. Each level is broken up into 3 sections and everyone playing gets to vote on what they would like to appear in each of these. What people are voting for is displayed in real time so you can see if your option is a lost cause and tip second place into the lead. It’s a simple touch but it turns the lobby waiting time into a bit of fun. It’s not mandatory so you can ignore if you want but a good touch.
What the game does very nicely is its cel-shaded style graphics which add a welcome touch of colour to a gaming spectrum that has mastered the HD of brown and grey skins. Defining the character models in particular, this is a great touch that is not used often enough in these games, probably because it makes it much easier to spot the players against the background. The game has a “cover” feature which can be used to hide behind rubble, zip to walls and even use it to dive from obstacle to obstacle. It makes for a more acrobatic approach and during my time playing it, on more than one occasion, I was saved by frantic mashing of the cover button as I vaulted to safety. The problem here though is that it required frantic mashing as it doesn’t seem to work as intuitively as some of the top tier shooters.
Another disappointing addition to the game was the presence of attack dogs. After raising your player a few levels, the option to “equip” your character with an attack dog appears. At first this is an entertaining addition to the game but quite quickly becomes obvious that this feature was added on rather than planned as a core mechanic. The canine AI leaves a lot to be desired as enemies sneak up behind you and your pooch stares ferociously into a wall as you get clubbed to death beside him.
In saying this, I did have fun with Special Forces:Team X, the problem is I just didn’t have it for that long. The maps make it very varied but impossible to develop a strategy and this constant map rotation makes it very hard to play squad tactics, which appears to have been the objective of the game, taking into account the bonus you receive for kills while with squad members. This bonus is probably the thing that annoyed me most in Special Forces:Team X, I could separate from my squad in a pincer movement and take out half of the opposing team or I could earn MORE points for taking the final shot at an enemy behind two of my fellow soldiers who have taken the other 98% of his health off him. This seems to be skewed from what is generally valued in these games, i.e. tactics.
Overall, Special Forces:Team X isn’t a bad game, Its art style is a welcome changes, its gameplay mechanics are fairly solid, it really is just the tweaks to try and differentiate themselves from the competition that have let Zombie Studios down. But the fact that they are willing to try and augment the standard FPS formula is promising and hopefully they will continue to innovate the genre.
Score: 5.5/10
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