When you first fire up the disc, you may think that you’re watching an actual news report. Footage of Hillary Clinton rolls across the screen, speaking of Kim Jong Il’s Korean Army Nuclear tests. This is followed by more reports of Kim Jong’s Il’s death and regime now being under his son’s power, the Invasion and take over of Japan, the crash of the global economy, escalating war in the mid east, gas prices soaring beyond $20.00 a gallon, and eventually in timeline form, the invasion of Hawaii & the rest of the U.S.A of which all are believable possibilities in this day and age.
The single player campaign includes Post apocalyptic Colorado. The Koreans occupy the United States. Mexico and Canada have closed their borders . Cut scenes of Kim Jong Il’s Korean army rounding up U.S. citizens and marching them off to work camp prisons. Alike Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime, American citizen’s were ruthlessly being beaten & killed by the side of the road. It makes you want to pick up your gun and start firing before the game even gets started.
You play the role of a former Marine pilot named Robert Jacobs. Jacobs had been captured & put on a bus heading for the work camps . Observing this carnage outside the bus window as you roll towards the camps. The bus is ambushed by the resistance, a group of Americans fighting off the occupation. You & your new cohorts make your way through different missions with the goal of getting fuel to what is left of the U.S. Military. Without going into too much detail about the campaign, I feel it is a pretty good game with an interesting and almost too believable plot. It is a bit on the short side, as most of the Online based games tend to be now. Thus I’d like to concentrate more on the online aspect of the game.
I have never written a game review before, but felt compelled to warn people of what they’re in for if they choose to drop $60.00 on this game, that in my opinion and the opinion of many others, should have been looked at very carefully before they decided to release it. I pre-ordered it after seeing the trailers & went online with it the day of the release. Problems started then and there with issues such as, game freeze and getting dropped during matches, but I’ll get into it more later.
This ain’t MAG and it ain’t BFBC2, though the graphics are similar. The game relies on team effort although a lot of players are coming in from COD games & don’t seem to understand that concept. The maps are similar in style to COD Modern Warfare, Black Ops etc. One is a farm area, another a suburban neighborhood or whats left of it with tons of burned out cars and junk strewn everywhere. I believe there are only 6 maps, one of my favorites is a city with familiar buildings such as White Castle , Hooters , & Jansport. (I wonder how much money in advertising royalties they’re getting…they should use it to fix the problems with the servers.)
Although as stated earlier, the developers expect it to be a team effort , they overlooked a lot of team necessities, such as a COMPASS. Did they happen to think of that one? Maybe you should be able to communicate where you are or more importantly, where the enemy is? Also if you’re lucky enough to get into a match with a friend or two, you’ll soon be looking to kill them because after the first match, it becomes a roll of the dice whether you will be on the same or opposite team, or even still in the room. There is also no way of forming a squad or inviting a friend during a match even in the match lobby. You would have to back out to do that and go through the pain of trying to get into another match.
The headset banter in the match lobby is at times a NIGHTMARE! With everyone talking at once and nothing being heard because it’s a garbled chopped up mess. I compare one session to a BAD ACID TRIP, little kids screaming choppy rap music along with garbled bitching about how obviously messed up the game is. It’s a shame because it has the potential to be a great game. The word is out all over the internet regarding the problems they’re having with the servers. First they said there wasn’t enough servers , so they added more. Then they put a patch on and all it seemed to do is make a lot of players (including myself) lose the the rank they had achieved in the first days. I went from lvl. 25 back down to lvl.10. Supposedly they are “Working Feverishly to fix the problems.” They remind me of the road crews throwing loose tar into the potholes instead of repaving the entire road.
The multiplayer game modes include Ground Control 32 players which is similar to conquest or domination. Team Death Match 24 players and Skirmish 16 players which is a combination of Ground Control and Team Death Match. Battle Commander is the same as the other 3, but with special objectives throughout the game given by an A.I. commander such as pointing out a player is on a kill streak giving more points to him if he survives or more to the player that takes him down.
Battle Points are distributed for kills, captures, etc. They can be spent on buying special abilities that you preselect before the match, such as RPG’s, Vehicles, Drones, U.A.V.’s, etc. Or you can save them to rank up quicker as they go towards your end of match score.
If you do decide to get the game (or maybe rent it to see if you want to drop $60 on it), Keep a few things in mind. Try to play as a team, too many players are coming in from COD with this out for themselves get as many points attitude. And if you’re going to use a Drone or a UAV, FIND SOME GOOD COVER! You would not believe how many people stand in the middle of the road or out in plain view while they operate one, leaving themselves vulnerable . Also use cover, as you can go prone in the bushes and there are plenty of hiding spaces around the maps. If you do get shot, try to find cover so you can revive because if you keep on running and shooting you will more then likely go down. Don’t forget to aim for the head!
Hopefully they will fix these problems because it really does have the potential to be a good game.