Mobile Forces

"Run, Shoot, Drive, Kill..."

In recent times we have seen a flood of new first person shooters aimed at the online multi-player scene. The most notable of these were ‘Unreal Tournament’ and ‘Quake 3.’ Both games raised the bar for shooters in general, and have spawned a number of other games using these two powerful graphics engines. Perhaps the most underrated of games based off the ‘UT’ engine is ‘Mobile Forces,’ a game that successfully incorporates vehicles into the gaming mix.

‘Mobile Forces’ is your standard multi-player shooter. As such, there is no plot, no story line and no continuity between levels.
Story: N/A

As mentioned earlier, ‘Mobile Forces’ is based off the ‘Unreal Tournament’ engine. While this is hardly a new engine (in fact, it has been superseded by the recent ‘Unreal Warfare’ engine), it is still solid enough to give good results on a variety of systems. Those people still running Pentium 3 700’s with 32MB graphics cards won’t have too much of a problem playing this game, while those people with powerful new P4 3.06Ghz systems will still be able to see the game make the most of the available hardware.
The four vehicles featured in the game look great, and the detail is almost freaky. There is a buggy, APC, Hum-vee and truck. The buggy looks incredibly cool, complete with working suspension. Go too fast over a jump and the suspension will compensate, making the car bounce up and down on the suspension struts. Tires can be shot off the cars, and the driver and passengers shot while in the vehicle. How’s that for realism?
The gun and player models are unfortunately not quite so good, and the gun models in particular are even less spectacular than those seen in UT. The hand is made up of a few cubes, and the guns seem to lack that certain ‘menace.’ The rocket launcher for instance, is little more than a giant cylinder. Still, if you are willing to forgive these minor issues, then you will see that the game features literally huge maps, easily three times the size of the biggest maps in UT. These maps have been designed specifically with the vehicles in mind, and even though they are so big, they still look great thanks to some advanced architecture and texturing. The maps are so good, you’ll barely even recognise the UT engine!
The variety between levels is another highpoint. One level will be set in the Antarctic, complete with ice (that affects the cars handling), and a half submerged submarine, surrounded by rolling hills, the next map set in an American ghetto, with fog, graffiti on the walls, and different routes over the rooftops and then a spaghetti western township. If there is one strength to the game, it’s the maps.
There are some great visual effects on offer too, such as the awesome explosions. Firing a rocket at an oncoming buggy and watching it blow up in a ball of fire will bring a smile to your face every time. Your smile will grow even wider as you see fiery shrapnel from the blown vehicle fall back to the ground. =)
One clever idea on the developer’s part is the use of a different camera angle when driving the vehicles. The view flicks from your first person to a third person one, fixed to the back of the car. You can chose between two other angles, one of which is first person, but the standard one is the most useful. The camera never becomes too obtrusive, so you won’t lose track of the action mid-way through a battle.
Graphics: 7

It’s obvious that when this game was made, realistic sound effects and pumping music weren’t high on the agenda. While the game doesn’t sound too bad overall, it doesn’t sound great either, and it pales in comparison to games like ‘Unreal Tournament.’
First, the voices are horrible. If they weren’t so useful I’d probably turn them off, which brings me to one of my complaints, not all the important comments are voiced, leaving you to rely on the text comments at the top of the screen.
The music is also pretty terrible, and I found myself turning it off and just sticking a CD in instead. Strangely, most of the game actually plays through without music, which is rather odd to say the least.
The guns sound alright, the pistol is pretty weak, but the rocket launcher sounds awesome! Shoot it at a car and you get a nice, loud, thumping explosion.
Speaking of which, the vehicles engines sound pretty good, jump into a buggy and the engine will roar to life. Sadly there aren’t any tyre screeching sound effects when you round a corner too fast or anything else like that. A shame.
Otherwise there isn’t much else to comment on. While the sound is nothing spectacular it’s not too bad either, and is much better than some other games that I’ve played recently *cough*Resident Evil*cough*
Sound: 6

Upon loading ‘Mobile Forces’ some may be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of modes on offer. Sure, the basics are here, death-match, team death-match, Capture the flag… but there are also some very interesting and unique modes, some even taking full advantage of the vehicles available to the game, removing any doubt in the gamers mind that they are just a gimmick. For example, one mode called ‘Trailer’ spawns a Hum-vee with a trailer carrying a bomb in the middle of the map. The first team to capture the jeep and drive it to the enemy’s base scores a point. This mode sets the scene for some chaotic racing action, with players shooting at each other from within the vehicles in an attempt to capture the trailer. The ability to shoot out the driver and the cars tyres sure do come in handy in this mode!
Other notable modes include holdout, much like UT’s domination mode where you must capture a spot on the map and hold it for a certain amount of time; captains where points are scored only by killing a team’s randomly selected ‘captain’ and two rather unique modes named ‘Safe Cracker’ and ‘Detonation.’
Detonation is much like ‘Trailer’ only this time each player is wearing a ‘Bomb Collar.’ A bomb detonation key is spawned on a random point on the map, and the first team to steal it and deliver it to the enemy base scores a point. The catch is, once the detonation key is delivered, the losing team’s bomb collars explode. Nice…
Finally ‘Safe Cracker’ sees you and your team attacking the enemy base, blasting their safe open, and taking the gold within back to your own base. After you win, the next team must do the exact same thing within the time it took the first team. Say it took team A ten minutes to steal the gold, then team B has under ten minutes to complete it after them.
While the modes aren’t entirely unique, with the addition of vehicles they certainly do enhance what would otherwise be a somewhat bland experience. This is sadly true of the entire game, as without the vehicles the game is just another mediocre shooter on the game store shelves amongst a sea of other titles.
The weapon selection is average at best, with all the standard sorts of guns included. Pistol? Check. Shotgun? Check. Machine Gun? Check. There is also a sniper rifle, rocket launcher, chain-gun and some grenades.
One interesting feature of the game is the so-called ‘load out’ screen, whereby you must choose the weapons and equipment to take out with you onto the battlefield, the only problem is you have a set number of inventory slots. Should you take that rocket launcher and forget about armour? Or should you take light weaponry and heavy armour? This element does add some shred of strategy to the game, although can often become rather tiresome. Dropped weapons can be picked up during a battle, however the clumsy menu system makes this very difficult to do with any great speed or efficiency, and chances are you will get shot in the back trying to pick up some crummy pistol. The weapons are also horribly unbalanced. For example, to fire the chain-gun you must sit through a five second loading animations, and once its complete you can’t actually move at all making you little more than a sitting duck. All this wouldn’t have been so bad if the gun wasn’t so horribly inaccurate. And don’t even think about taking down an enemy with a pistol, it’s far more trouble than it’s worth, you may as well just throw rocks instead. This area of the game definitely needed some more tweaking, because as it stands there are only about two or three weapons that you will ever actually use.
Despite all this though, the computer AI is certainly worthy of praise and is in many ways superior to the game that spawned it; ‘Unreal Tournament.’ That’s a pretty bold statement to be making, but luckily it is very true. The bots know how to drive the vehicles, they rarely run into walls, and can even control a vehicle after all its wheels have been shot off. They are able to find their way around each map without too much trouble, when on foot almost never get stuck on walls, and most importantly of all, are a real challenge on the harder difficulties. The complexity of the AI is very apparent when you are able to ride ‘shotgun’ in one of the cars with a bot driving, which is pretty cool considering the bots drive better than my best friend ;)
The maps were also excellent, although there weren’t nearly enough (only eleven). Each one has been designed with both vehicles and players on foot in mind, and there are short-cuts offered to those without vehicles. Out of the eleven maps almost all of them were great, with the exception of about two. The settings for each is great, from an Antarctic research station to an American ghetto and even a hydro power plant. Each one has plenty of spots for snipers, and just as much cover for the players on foot.
All that said, nothing about ‘Mobile Forces’ is particularly new or inventive, instead it is just a collection of decent elements from other games; there is nothing remarkable about this game at all. Sure, it’s fun to play for a few hours, but once the novelty of the vehicles wears off, you’ll be hard pressed to ever go back to it. However if you can find some friends willing to play a LAN or internet game, then there is bucket loads of fun to be had in ‘Mobile Forces.’
Life Span: 5
Game Play: 7

Pros
+ Excellent maps
+ Vehicles!
+ Explosions!
+ Heaps of game modes
+ Bargain price
+ Graphics
+ Good Multiplayer game

Cons
- Not enough maps
- Average weapons
- Short lived
- Voice acting…

I was able to buy my copy of ‘Mobile Forces’ in a sale for AU$5 (about US$2.50) at my local EB which is incredible value! At a price like that there is certainly nothing stopping you from getting this game, and considering how much fun it is, if only for just a few hours, then you really can’t go wrong. It’s even cheaper then going to see a movie, and probably far more entertaining too. All I can say is go and get this game, now!
Overall: 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/03