Close Combat: First to Fight
Posted June 28, 2005
First to Fight boasts that it’s “Based on a training tool developed for the United States Marines”, but in fine print also states that the USMC nor any other part of the DoD has approved, endorsed or Authorized this product. Yet, some individual Marines were included in the making of this game, and it shows when you see how the Marines move and react to certain situations.
As a leader of a four man fire team in Beirut, Lebanon, you’re goal is to maneuver your way through multiple levels and accomplish various goals, all culminating in the capture/elimination of some high importance targets (yes the standard Terrorist Deck of cards is here), basically you’re on a terrorist hunt and the city is your backdrop.
Gameplay:
I’ve played relatively few squad based games, and enjoyed even fewer. I tend to hate being bogged down in the details of planning routes and using waypoints in games like Ghost Recon, yet the squad tactics of FtF were very nicely balanced with regards to the ease of making your four man team do what you wanted them to do, either as a team or on an individual basis. Controlling your team is actually fairly easy, and seeing them do something that you actually request them to do is a sight to behold.
Sending orders is as simple as selecting who you want to react, each of your three non-user controlled members is mapped to a direction on the D-pad, with the 4th direction being all members. To tell the team to advance to a location, simply point the onscreen reticule to the location, and press A and the team will advance. If you hold the button a little longer, a menu comes onscreen which will let you order some other commands, such as a tactical takedown of a room, or order the OPFOR (opposing force in Marine speak) to comply to your demands.
The AI is generally quite sharp in FtF, and that is best demonstrated when making your way through the open streets of Beirut. If you are foolish and use the middle of the street, your four man team will walk in a box formation, with all directions covered by a member. And get this, if one of the fire team sees an enemy, they’ll actually attack and more often then not their shooting skills are high enough that they’ll hit and eliminate the enemy! What a novel concept, team AI that works as a team!
Another interesting concept in the game is ability to call in for support from other factions of the Marines. In some cases, you’re team will be pinned down by enemy fire that is just out of range of your high powered scope. However, there happens to be a perfect location in a building just out of your reach, so what you can do is point the reticule at the location and you cal call in for a sniper to cover you as you advance through the bombed out street. Along these lines, you can also call for air strikes on a location with a Cobra gunship, also you can call for a mortar attack on a location.
As a single player game, First to Fight: Close Combat is entertaining, but the real joy comes from playing this game with friends either online or on split-screen co-op play. The standard death match games are also here, but I found those to be not much better than other FPS death match adventures online, the real joy came from the co-op play. You can have up to four people in a co-op game, each taking on the role of one member of the fire team. If you can manage to get four players who you trust, then this is by far the best way to play First to Fight.
Graphics:
I was pleasantly surprised with the graphics when I first popped in this game, but as time wore on and I saw more things (such as the close up animations of the OPFOR) I started to feel a little under whelmed. Overall though, the graphics were quite sharp, and the long shots of the city streets were very nicely rendered, especially the smoldering vehicles, and collapsed buildings each offering cover to you and the enemy forces.
Audio:
Sometimes games will rely too much on some hard hitting music to pump up the adrenaline of the gamer; and for the most part First to Fight strays from this standard and subscribes to the minimalist approach to in game music. Sure there are times where some music will rise up to join the action, but then once the onscreen slaughter stops, the music will fade and you’ll be left with the silence of a city torn by war.
One thing that was almost so bad it was good was the voice work of the CNN styled news broadcasts which helped get the story of the game across in its cut scenes. Initially I was almost a little embarrassed for the person who had to do that voice work, but now I like to tell myself that it was written that way, and that the game producers requested the voice work to be poor, to help make some of the other good things (like multi-player) stand out a little more.
Conclusion:
As far as squad based shooters go, I found First to Fight to be an enjoyable one that was much easier to pick up and play than more tactical ones like Ghost Recon, yet offered a much better gameplay than things like Brute Force. Nothing about this game will wow you, but the single player campaign is enjoyable for the most part, thanks to the surprisingly intelligent AI on behalf of your team of Marines.
And as mentioned, the best part of this game has to be the multiplayer option. If you can get past the swearing 12 year olds on Xbox Live, and actually align yourself with some decent players, you might find yourself having a fairly fun time playing the game online. But if you have the luxury of having some friends pop by for some action, then this makes one hell of a fun split-screen experience. It’s definitely worth a rental to see if this game fits your needs; because squad based games are not everyone’s idea of a perfect game. Rent it.
As a leader of a four man fire team in Beirut, Lebanon, you’re goal is to maneuver your way through multiple levels and accomplish various goals, all culminating in the capture/elimination of some high importance targets (yes the standard Terrorist Deck of cards is here), basically you’re on a terrorist hunt and the city is your backdrop.
Gameplay:
I’ve played relatively few squad based games, and enjoyed even fewer. I tend to hate being bogged down in the details of planning routes and using waypoints in games like Ghost Recon, yet the squad tactics of FtF were very nicely balanced with regards to the ease of making your four man team do what you wanted them to do, either as a team or on an individual basis. Controlling your team is actually fairly easy, and seeing them do something that you actually request them to do is a sight to behold.
Sending orders is as simple as selecting who you want to react, each of your three non-user controlled members is mapped to a direction on the D-pad, with the 4th direction being all members. To tell the team to advance to a location, simply point the onscreen reticule to the location, and press A and the team will advance. If you hold the button a little longer, a menu comes onscreen which will let you order some other commands, such as a tactical takedown of a room, or order the OPFOR (opposing force in Marine speak) to comply to your demands.
The AI is generally quite sharp in FtF, and that is best demonstrated when making your way through the open streets of Beirut. If you are foolish and use the middle of the street, your four man team will walk in a box formation, with all directions covered by a member. And get this, if one of the fire team sees an enemy, they’ll actually attack and more often then not their shooting skills are high enough that they’ll hit and eliminate the enemy! What a novel concept, team AI that works as a team!
Another interesting concept in the game is ability to call in for support from other factions of the Marines. In some cases, you’re team will be pinned down by enemy fire that is just out of range of your high powered scope. However, there happens to be a perfect location in a building just out of your reach, so what you can do is point the reticule at the location and you cal call in for a sniper to cover you as you advance through the bombed out street. Along these lines, you can also call for air strikes on a location with a Cobra gunship, also you can call for a mortar attack on a location.
As a single player game, First to Fight: Close Combat is entertaining, but the real joy comes from playing this game with friends either online or on split-screen co-op play. The standard death match games are also here, but I found those to be not much better than other FPS death match adventures online, the real joy came from the co-op play. You can have up to four people in a co-op game, each taking on the role of one member of the fire team. If you can manage to get four players who you trust, then this is by far the best way to play First to Fight.
Graphics:
I was pleasantly surprised with the graphics when I first popped in this game, but as time wore on and I saw more things (such as the close up animations of the OPFOR) I started to feel a little under whelmed. Overall though, the graphics were quite sharp, and the long shots of the city streets were very nicely rendered, especially the smoldering vehicles, and collapsed buildings each offering cover to you and the enemy forces.
Audio:
Sometimes games will rely too much on some hard hitting music to pump up the adrenaline of the gamer; and for the most part First to Fight strays from this standard and subscribes to the minimalist approach to in game music. Sure there are times where some music will rise up to join the action, but then once the onscreen slaughter stops, the music will fade and you’ll be left with the silence of a city torn by war.
One thing that was almost so bad it was good was the voice work of the CNN styled news broadcasts which helped get the story of the game across in its cut scenes. Initially I was almost a little embarrassed for the person who had to do that voice work, but now I like to tell myself that it was written that way, and that the game producers requested the voice work to be poor, to help make some of the other good things (like multi-player) stand out a little more.
Conclusion:
As far as squad based shooters go, I found First to Fight to be an enjoyable one that was much easier to pick up and play than more tactical ones like Ghost Recon, yet offered a much better gameplay than things like Brute Force. Nothing about this game will wow you, but the single player campaign is enjoyable for the most part, thanks to the surprisingly intelligent AI on behalf of your team of Marines.
And as mentioned, the best part of this game has to be the multiplayer option. If you can get past the swearing 12 year olds on Xbox Live, and actually align yourself with some decent players, you might find yourself having a fairly fun time playing the game online. But if you have the luxury of having some friends pop by for some action, then this makes one hell of a fun split-screen experience. It’s definitely worth a rental to see if this game fits your needs; because squad based games are not everyone’s idea of a perfect game. Rent it.