Close Combat: First to Fight

"fun at First Fight, but wears off quickly"

As I trudged into Blockbuster one day, I was looking for a good shooting/strategy game. Having played all the Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell games, and played Conflict, Battlefield 2, and Counter Strike, I was thinking I might be running our of options. Then I saw this game and rented it. I was mezmerized at first.

GRAPHICS 9/10
I was pretty surprised at well the game came out. Textures were smooth were and not blocky at all, and the character models turned out to be pretty great, too. Although this game lacks considerably on the explosions and bombed out cars. The explosions looked like something you might draw on Paint. All in all, though, pretty good in the graphics department.

STORY 2/10
Of course, in all shooters there is hardly any story whatsoever, just an excuse to put steel on targets. But I think this game could have done a really cool story to go with the missions. I've played through 4 of the 6 enormouis levels, and still have NO idea why the hell I'm even there. Who cares, though?

GAMEPLAY 4/10
The gameplay is everything in a game, so this is important. The game goes like this: You are the commanding elite of a squad of 4 U.S Marines. You are in the Middle East fighting for some reason... and yeah, kill terrorists. This game is very realistic, besides the fact that when you get hurt, all you have to do is press white button, and you will be healed immediatly. Also, should your fellow Marines get criticall7yinjured, and are for some reason unable to heal themselves (you have to) the lay on the ground when you heal them, and when you turn your crosshairs/character, and look back where he was, he disappeared. Apparently he was evacde to safety. This game is linear in execution, as you just follow the yellow marker on your TACMAP. It will always have a waypoint for you to follow, leading you to the next sedtion. The AI in this game is also EXTREMELY important, as you find out in the un-skippable 5 minute long intro movie. There are multiple orders you can give your team from your radial menu, and another awsome features: You can call for mortar strikes, sniper cover, and extra support during missions anytime you want, though you are given a set amount. It really puts a new twist on the game, and adds a lot of realism. There are 6 missions, each one broken up multiple times with loading times in between. The reason for my low score is that EVERY LEVEL LOOKS AND PLAYS EXACTLY THE SAME. All the levels look the same, and it always gives you a sence of deja vu. In one mission, you have to go through sewers, eliminating everything, to go somewhere. The next and the next mission have you do the same thing. It really gets boring and gives you no reason to continue. I've played 4 missions and will not go further.
One last thing, as the squad leader, you get the same gun through the whole game, kinda a bummer. A big weapon selection would be uber cool.

MULTIPLAYER 3/10
I was hoping this game could redeem itself with a great multiplayer on Xbox Live. I was wrong. It seems NO ONE! has headsets, which is boring not being able to talk. I was not able to play versus, only Coop, because not one single person was on versus for the 5 days I've had this game. I guess it is not popular at all. In coop, you go through the exact same levels of campaign, only this time, you can choose who in the squad you want to be: A rifleman, a back up rifleman, a gunnner, or a back up gunner. Ohhh!!! Cool!! not.

SOUND 8/10
Pretty much the same sounds from any other shooting game. Great and realistic, only the explosions are tinny, and the guns get annoying after a whie, since thers only 4 guns in the entire game. The gunners guns, the riflemans guns, the AK 74, and some other Russian gun. Wow.

RENT OR BUY
Trust me on this. You will be wowed at first, at the amount of realism (some times) and cool features and stuff. But I swear, it wears off quickly. Just give it rent before boning out $40 or so.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/21/06