Cross Fire

"The Epitome of Mediocrity"

Crossfire is a free game by G4Box. It is a first person shooter similar to Combat Arms, War Rock, and Soldier Front. There is not much that is really wrong with the game, but it also brings nothing new to the table and incorporates a lot of elements from other games to turn it into a playable, but not exceptional experience.

Graphics - 3/10

This game has horrid graphics. It looks like it belongs on the Nintendo 64. For its system requirements, the game really does not look good. The CPU requirements come closer to higher-end titles like F.E.A.R. and the graphics requirements are really excessive for what you get. Even Soldier Front, which ran on one of the worst IGPs ever, has better graphics than this and lower requirements.

Audio - 6/10

The audio sounds a bit corny. Gunshots could sound a lot better. Moreover, the game suffers from "fire in the hole" syndrome, where every time someone throws a grenade, the game screams "fire in the hole!" at you. While many games do this, this is the third game or so and it gets old after a while. It gets particularly nerve wracking in this game, due to the voice over of it.

Controls - 10/10

The controls are completely customizable. There are no real problems here. The controls are also rather simple.

Game Play - 4/10

The game play reeks of mediocre game dynamics at best. There are several game modes: team death match, elimination, search and destroy, and ghost hunt. Team death match is a constant battle where a team needs to score a certain amount of kills to win. Elimination is similar, but it is broken down into rounds, where one team must eliminate the other to win. Search and destroy is a game mode where one team needs to find targets and blow them up while the other team defends. Finally, there is ghost hunt, which is an incredibly confusing and boring game mode where one team is comprised of invisible ghosts that can only be detected when moving and making noise. The other team needs to kill the ghosts.

The game dynamics in the game themselves are mediocre. The game uses a buy-and-repair weapon system. You buy a gun, and then need to repair it after every match. This means that when you get a gun, you are pretty much stuck with it and selling it makes you lose money.

The game's weapon dynamics are also mediocre. They remind of of Counter Strike in a way. This means that the while the cross hairs are not very big, bullets will spray all over anyway. However, one difference from Counter Strike is the fact that bullets will actually hit and kill if you burst fire.

The actual weapons are not balanced. You start out with the M16 and M700 and are allowed to buy extra weapons as money affords. However, not all weapons are equal. Some weapons are only slight improvements from the original default weapons, while some are overpowered monstrosities. After buying one weapon, my kill-death ratio went up by 0.5. This is a major increase.

Level design in this game is horrible. Think of a box. Add some crates and pillars to hide behind. Add textures to make the level look like it has an actual environment. That is basically all a level is. Half of the game's levels are really simple. I normally bash a lot of custom maps in games for having bad level design, but this game's default maps are worse than many of them.

Fun Factor - 6/10

The game can be fun. The game dynamics are not that broken and there are not many hackers. However, the atmosphere and extremely simplistic level design as well as the mediocrity of the game in general can dampen the experience.

Replay Value - 6/10

This game will probably not keep your attention span for long since there are many other free games that do the exact same thing as this one but better. As for the content of the game, there are very few maps. Many maps are only available in certain game modes. Therefore, if you do not like a game mode, you cannot play half the game as it is. Each game mode has around 3-5 maps or so, but many of these are not good. However, this game has room for improvement since it is one of those games where the developers keep adding official content through occasional patches.

Learning Curve - 6/10

This game is too easy. That is right. Not too hard, but too easy. If you have any experience in first person shooters and get at least a 0.3-0.5 kill-death ratio, you can easily get at least a 1.0 in this game. It is easy just to camp in the right place and watch your kill count go up with next to no effort.

Overall - 5/10

Overall, this game is mediocre at best. It is free, and I would recommend downloading it if you are bored, but there are many other free games out there that do the exact same thing better. This game is too shallow and too easy for most serious gamers.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/09

Game Release: Cross Fire (US, January 2009)