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Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger (Xbox 360)

Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger review

Game: Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Developer: Atomic Motion

Staff review by Gary Hartley

October 19, 2009

In getting this down on paper, I’m going to feel mean, but Raven Squad is the bastard lovechild of a half-arsed RTS and a shoddy FPS. One raised under powerlines and force fed a stable diet of lead-based paint chips.

It’s a shame in many ways, because the idea the entire game heavily relies upon is so simplistically brilliant that I’ve no idea how no one’s made a killer video game from it before. Imagine your average RTS, then imagine that, instead of watching your controllable troops duke it out in static battles via a camera fitted high up in the sky, you could instead jump into their very heads and take the fight on yourself. That’s the big idea behind Atomic Motion’s new multi-talented squad based shooter but, unfortunately, all the brave idea has given rise to is the ability to drop the ball on two separate fronts.

Move past the limping tutorial stages, and the game plays out with control over two groups of three, tasked with the usual jungle warfare objectives and a cheesy narration from a disembodied Asian accent clearly voiced by someone who’s not of Asian descent. Raven Squad suffers perhaps the most in areas like this, offering up the kind of voice acting so bad that it regularly (and by complete accident) stumbles back and forth between the line that divides hilariously bad and ear-bleedingly bad, like a homeless guy clutching a drained bottle of spirits. The graphics look like they belong two generations of consoles ago; the controls for the FPS sections are clumsy and over-sensitive. The AI’s only opinions are stay rooted to the spot and be shot, or run around, seemingly aimlessly, until you manage to coax your butter-coated firearm into locking on to the poor buggers, and put them out of their misery.

It’s almost heartbreaking to watch the genuinely good ideas get dog piled by poor implementation. Each of the six mercs under your control have equally abrasive and cliché personalities, but they also have specialist skills that set them all apart. The gung-ho Vin Diesel-esque leader who won’t ever shut up about blowing all his money in Las Vegas can whip out a huge heavy machinegun for suppressive fire, while his burly friends can produce a rocket launcher to take out enemy vehicles or grenades to obliterate obstacles. These skills work well in tandem -- and then you start to use the second group, headed up by a cocky Australian with access to a sniper rifle. To accent his long range capabilities, his team-mates are outfitted with… smoke and flash grenades. And the throwing ability of a small girl.

Heartbreaking, because the blueprints exist beneath half an acre of sludge for a good title, but it’s a bridge too far for the Hungarian developer’s first release. Every aspect of the game feels like its been ambitiously but hurriedly slapped together from an outdated source engine at home, then voiced by random passersby who couldn’t care less.

More Reviews by Gary Hartley
	Labyrinth X (Xbox 360) Trial and error so tedious, it even takes the gleam off barely-covered anime tits.
	Spec Ops: The Line (PlayStation 3) Come suffer alongside me. You'll thank me for it.
	Super Black Bass 3D (3DS) Too clusmy to be a sim. Too slow to be arcade. Too ugly to get a second look.

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