Brute Force

Taking up a good sniping position

Brute Force is the long awaited third-person squad-based shooter from developers Digital Anvil. Combining slick visuals, a well integrated multiplayer mode and a single player campaign with a flowing story this game promises much. Brute Force has been billed as the “Next Halo” and has certainly sold well enough that many might think it is. Unfortunately, whilst Digital Anvil have delivered a strong game they haven’t delivered as polished a product as Bungie did or hope to do with the real Halo 2. The squad-based element of the game is well implemented but more “arcadeish” than Ghost Recon, for instance.

There’s no I in team

Hawk uses her sword to take out a guard.

This is a squad-based shooter and sure enough you are ultimately put in charge of a team of four soldiers. I say ultimately because you start the single player mission with a team of one. A couple of missions into the game and you add another and then a couple of missions on you add the third and finally the fourth. This staggered approach allows you to get used to the controls without overwhelming you at first and works well. It also gives you the opportunity to learn how best to use the team members.

Each has a unique special ability and particular strengths. Tex is the heavy weapons guy and his special ability is a beserk mode where he uses two guns at once. Tex also has the largest health bar of any of the team members. Brutus is a lizard like creature whose special ability is the “Spirit of Vengar” which allows him to shoot whilst sprinting, regain energy over time and gives a sort of thermal vision to help pick out enemies in low vision. Flint is the sniper and her special ability is an auto-aim so that once locked on to an enemy you just have to pull the trigger. Finally, Hawk is the stealth specialist and her special ability is to turn invisible as well as having a hand-to-hand weapon.

When activated the special abilities run down a stamina bar which when depleted refills very slowly. The abilities can only be used whilst there is stamina remaining. Orders are issued by pointing the d-pad to the team member you want to order and then pressing one of the command buttons (cover-me, stand ground, fire at will and move to). These all work well and this system is very easy to use.

Intelligent teammates

Brutus goes Beserk

Fortunately the computer controlled team members are all well controlled by the computer. They may not always be where you want them to be but they generally do a good job. This problem is obviously solved by playing with four people. The missions are well balanced between the different team members and allow for a range of strategies.

You need to consider aspects like who takes the lead, do you send the heavy weapons guy in to clear the area, the stealth specialist to scope out the area and silently take out the guards, the sniper to pick off the enemies from a distance or Brutus who can more easily spot the enemies quickly? You will also find that in the middle of a large-scale battle you quickly get the hang of switching from Tex with his heavy weapons to Flint to quickly snipe an annoying enemy who keeps taking pot shots at you.

The character is chosen by using the D-Pad to point to the character you want and, although immediately disorienting you quickly find your bearings and complete what you were trying to do. The single-player game is also important for the death-match game in that characters are unlocked for the death-match by locating DNA canisters in the single player game. These canisters are hidden around the level forcing you to explore the levels more than you perhaps would otherwise.

Brutal missions

The team protect the seer spy.

The levels are very linear in design and you are funneled through each mission in quite an artificial way. A few invisible walls are employed but only on poorly textured objects such as spacecraft that you can’t walk underneath despite them being sufficiently far from the ground. Mostly your progress is hampered by hills that you can’t climb despite looking quite climbable and deadly pools. This is not the worst way to shepherd someone through a level, but there is definitely only one correct route through each level.

The levels themselves are fairly varied and pretty. The mission aims are pretty vague and the designers seemed to run out of names for things so in an early level Tex recovers an “Alien Doohickey”! The missions involve mostly all out destruction with a few escort missions thrown into the middle of some but the aims of each mission are not made clear at the beginning of each one, you’re generally just told to go and investigate.

The Next Halo?

The guard regrets letting his friend have curry.

The enemy AI reminds me of Halo in the way enemies back off to regroup and dive out of the way of your grenades. Good, reactive AI helps to make the campaign game more involving since the enemy seems more realistic. I find it hard to believe that this level of quality of AI is so difficult to implement that it is often absent from games leaving the enemy a rather mindless opponent. The game features a campaign mode for a single player or multiplayer in co-operative mode as well as split screen or system-link multiplayer deathmatch modes.

The co-operative multiplayer is particularly well integrated. If you are playing in single player and a friend wanders into the room and wants to join in, they just plug in a controller and press start. They will then take on the role of one of the members of your squad. If they decided to leave and you want to continue then they simply quit and their character becomes computer controlled again. There is no support for Xbox Live for multiplayer although downloadable content is promised for future expansion.

Forceful sounds

Multiplayer can be played split-screen or via system link.

The in-game sound effects are pretty good. The music is rather tedious but the weapon sounds, especially Hawk’s sword weapon, all sound suitably meaty. The characters also talk to each other, when they discover something or kill somebody. This adds to the atmosphere, as do the overheard conversations of enemy soldiers a la Halo. The voice acting is generally pretty wooden, as we have come to expect from games these days.

The story that links the campaign missions together is not the greatest story and doesn’t necessarily make complete sense but at least an attempt is made at a story. This is progressed with cut-scenes between missions and at the start of each mission section.

Controlling the beast

The squad charges down the enemy.

The controls are laid out the same as Halo’s controls so almost all Xbox owners will feel immediately at home. The right hand thumb stick controls the camera position and the left controls movement. The controls feel less intuitive than they did on Halo though, possibly as a result of the third person perspective. I did find it too difficult to successfully track an enemy across the screen whilst running in the opposite direction. The control system ultimately works and, niggles aside; I felt it suited the fast paced action.

Brute Force is a well-executed game that rightly deserves the commercial success it has already seen so soon after release. It’s no Halo beater but it stands on its own as a top class title for Microsoft’s green box. If you’re thinking about buying it then you’ll need to consider it against the likes of Ghost Recon and Desert Storm. It’s faster paced than either of these games and definitely more immediate than Ghost Recon. If you want to plan your strategy and see it intelligently implemented then Ghost Recon is probably for you. If you want something more “arcadeish” but not at a slower pace then Desert Storm is probably for you. For fast paced squad based shooting action, however, it has to be Brute Force.