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It's been months since I last
picked up an Xbox game; so it was high time for one worth purchasing to arrive.
So, what was released recently? Brute Force, Microsoft’s touted
Halo killer. The same
game that was advertised since day one of the system, and went through multiple
delays. After a bit of coercion from Shane, I went out and picked it up.
Anyway, for those of you who weren't waiting patiently for it; Brute Force is a
third person shooter that puts you in command of four elite Special Forces
units. Your job is to do things others can’t, or won’t. Yeah, the plot is
obviously not what held up development.
Graphics -- Damned Good
When you hear the phrase "Uses the power of the Xbox to the fullest", you should
think of Brute Force. This game is drop dead gorgeous. First, there are your
character models. They are insanely detailed even from the third person vantage
point you are given. When adjusting your controlled character to get a closer
view at another one, they are only that much prettier. Each character is highly
detailed, from clothing to the different weapons you pick up that they wear on
their back. And better yet, not a jaggy to be seen. The FSAA abilities were used
in full force here, and it shows.
Enemy models received the same level of attention, and everything from mutants,
seers, priests, and rogue marines are all beautifully rendered on the screen and
highly detailed.
Now for the environments. They are decent sized, but very well detailed. The
texture work is amazingly good and environmental effects like lava, water, and
volumetric fog are also gorgeous. Buildings and even volumetric grass are also
richly detailed. There are only two issues with the environments that I
encountered. The most obvious flaw was that far too often your team got stuck in
canyons. There aren’t any wide open fields to roam across and everything is too
confined. My second gripe surrounds the level variety. In fact there are only
three different environments in the entire game. You have a lava planet, a swamp
planet, and badlands. There could have been environmental differences, but the
playable levels are so brilliant that you really won’t notice the monotony until
you near the end of the game.
From the well developed environments to the awesome special effects, Brute Force
truly impressed me. The special variety of special effects ranged from dynamic
fire, wild explosions (multiple kinds ranging from fragmentary, energy, and gas)
and even a cloaking ability on Hawk that would embarrass even the Predator
himself.
To be fully honest, I never noticed any glaring flaws in the graphics. Even the
solid frame rate remained high throughout the entire game with no visible
slowdowns.
Sounds -- Well Done
Far too often game developers skimp on sounds, be it in voice acting or just
regular effects. This wasn’t the case in Brute Force. While they are nothing to
deserve a “music award”, the overall sounds weren’t taken lightly by the
developers. The voices range from decent to campy-good that accompanied special
effects perfectly. With that said, the gunfire and explosions stood out from the
rest of the audio, and was far superior to the rest. As far as ambient effects,
they were far and few between. It definitely could have used more, like
different sounding footsteps walking through different terrain.
Gameplay -- Well Done
The gameplay is simple. It plays a lot like Halo, only in third person. Your
left stick moves you around and the right one aims. Right trigger fires, left
trigger uses items (like grenades or med-kits), Y changes weapons, A jumps, B
switches items, and X manipulates the environment. Getting into the game is
smooth and most gamers probably won’t even need the included tutorial at the
beginning. Controls are fluid and responsive, with the exception of the
manipulate button. This “feature” takes a couple seconds to activate; which can
be annoying when trying to clear a minefield under fire.
You also have to think ahead and control your other squad members. You can do
this in a few ways. All squad controls involve the D-pad. A single tap switches
control of members to you and you can also hold the d-pad in their direction to
give commands. Commands, however, are limited to "fire away", "hold ground",
"move to", and "cover me".
Each character also has special moves to give a bit more depth to gameplay.
These moves use up an energy bar located below the health bar, and turn off when
the bar is depleted. The bar then regenerates on its own and you can use it
again. For example: Tex can pull out both guns on his back and make Rambo seem
like a sissy. Brutus turns on the Spirit of Vengar, which allows him to detect
hidden enemies, regenerate health, and lay a beat-down tackle. Hawk can go
invisible and use a blade to slice up enemies from behind for an instant kill.
Lastly, Flint can instantly target and hit anything on the screen with her
sniper rifle, even while moving.
If you can find three other Brute Force players out there you could link up your
systems and play cooperatively. Honestly, I wish I could have found that many
players together, because four players full screen burning through campaign mode
sounds totally sweet. I did, however, give the two player co-op on split screen
mode a try, and that was fun. For those of you who are Live enabled, there is
also an option to connect to the Xbox Live! Network.
For you deathmatch hardcore there is also an included deathmatch mode. I
personally never touched it for it bores the piss out of me as everyone does it
and it is rarely any different from game to game.
AI -- OK
The AI in Brute Force is decent. Nothing groundbreaking, but not mindlessly
stupid either. Enemies use level geometry to hide behind, like pillars, rocks
and trees to avoid your fire and duck out to shoot back. It is a shame, though,
that unless specially scripted, you can snipe an enemy from afar and his buddy
standing next to him doesn’t even flinch. Also, if playing as Hawk and you go
invisible right in front of an enemy, they act as if you never existed.
Then there is the allied AI. They do a good job of fighting, but can be stupid
at times. One example would be when I take my favorite character, Hawk, go
invisible and head out to assassinate some guys. Your allies will follow you
along instead of trying to clear out the enemies in their way before coming
through, making them get hit like crazy. Also, Flint doesn’t stop every now and
again to scan for sniping targets, making her useless as AI help. Because of the
allied idiocy, you usually find out you are down to one med kit as they won’t
use the last one automatically. Tex and Brutus have decent AI, as all their job
is to shoot anything that moves. The only burning problem there is that Tex
won’t automatically disarm and take mines. Instead he shoots them, thus
inflicting damage to him and the entire party.
Story
There IS a story here believe it or not. It’s not horrible, but it’s definitely
not the next Final Fantasy. There is a bit of a story involving Shadoon and a
cult trying to take over the universe, but apart from the well rendered
cut-scenes, it isn’t developed much. Gameplay as well as storyline in Brute
Force is about mindless violence, not story.
Replay
Brute Force has a decent level of replay. You can play through the campaign mode
yourself in about 14 hours and can then do it again with up to 3 other friends.
There is also the deathmatch mode if you are so inclined to do so (make sure to
hit campaign mode first, since that is how you acquire more people to play as).
Bottom Line
Brute Force is a very good shooter. It is flat out gorgeous eye candy, it has
decent sounds, and great gameplay. If it weren’t for the weak AI and limited
environments, the game would have been nearly perfect. Still, this is a very
solid purchase and should provide a lot of fun alone or with a group of friends
in co-op mode… a must have for all Xbox owners and Halo fans.
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