Conflict: Global Terror
	Genre: First-Person Shooter Developer: Pivotal Games
Publisher Region Released 2K Games NA 10/03/2005

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Staff Review

Review by Jason Venter
November 16, 2005

Conflict: Global Terror’s first problem is that it’s not the only game available within its genre. You’ll stick it in your Xbox, turn on the power, start playing and (if you’re like me) almost immediately wish you were playing something else. Maybe it’s a role-playing title, or a racer, or Madden or Pong. The point is that you’ll wish you were playing something else, just about anything else. That’s the other problem, and it’s related to the first.

Since it’s the third or fourth in a series of squad-based shooters, Conflict: Global Terror’s developers should have easily avoided such an issue. You should often find yourself wasting five exciting hours without food or bathroom breaks. Unfortunately, that never happens. Before you ask, no… I don’t hate this type of game. I’ve just played Battlefield 2.

In Battlefield 2, your soldier moves smoothly. You view the action from a first-person perspective, so it’s easy to see all of the action. Weapon changes are simple, and you don’t have to worry about squad stupidity because you’re probably playing online and they’re all controlled by humans with brains. You swarm a building together and one of you falls back to watch your flank and rear, while others head for high ground maybe to snipe. Someone comes along with a medic kit. Maybe you’ve downloaded Teamspeak for trash talk and teamwork.

Conflict: Global Terror doesn’t have that. At least, it doesn’t in the single-player mode. Instead, you hold the left trigger to issue a command, then press the appropriate button. For example, you might order your men to fire at will, or to move to a certain location. You can specify their target, and the approach style. You can even delay commands. Unfortunately, it’s just not very satisfying. The men do what they tell you to do, but often need new orders within seconds.

Leaving your team to do whatever they wish becomes tempting, but they’re too dense. If you’re all descending a staircase and there are enemies below, you’ll probably get winged by friendly fire. Other times, they’ll get in your way when you’d otherwise have a great shot. Sure, this can happen online if you’re playing similar games with friends, but here it’s just more frustrating.

Your obstructed view doesn’t help. Since you’re viewing everything from behind, there are often moments where someone is hiding behind some cover in the distance, occasionally peering out to shoot at you. Maybe there are two or three enemies. You see the one, because he’s off to your left. But while you deal with him, someone else is directly ahead of you, shooting casually as your life meter drops. Naturally, he’s invisible to you. Either he’s hiding too well, or your soldier is in the way of the camera, or things are too blurry.

Blurriness isn’t the only issue. Conflict: Global Terror actually does have some pretty good textures, whether you’re looking at a wall or at the grass or whatever. It’s all about as sharp as you could hope for, but with a general feel of dinginess that means there’s not enough color variety. Fog is also common. Add these factors together and suddenly it doesn’t matter that most of what you’re looking at is technically sharp; visibility is still poor.

As a result, you’ll spend a lot of time just guessing at where your target is, based on the yellow bursts of gunfire. Most of the time this is sufficient, and you sluggishly advance through the stage. Then disaster strikes: everything looks the same. Even in the first mission, a claustrophobic set of buildings your squad finds itself in after an unfortunate enemy ambush, walls melt together. It’s easy to spend a few minutes wandering around, checking doors ten times over, pretty much moving in circles because some of the floor plans just make no sense. Landmarks lose their value unless you’re quick to distribute any new ammunition you acquire among your team members, since otherwise you’ll be dropping as much as you pick up. So much for using ammo supplies as breadcrumbs.

Even if you want to distribute ammo, it’s not always easy. Your cautious men often fall behind, even if you’ve cleared an area of enemies. Even when they are nearby, you have to wait until the on-screen command appears before you can press the ‘A’ button to share the wealth. It’s a context-sensitive button that sometimes allows you to climb, or to divide supplies, or to switch weapons or heal a fallen comrade. Sometimes, it’s just useless.

In truth, the game as a whole sometimes shares that quality. What play it if it’s not entertaining? Does it serve any real purpose? Well, yes. In Conflict: Global Terror’s favor, it does have an online mode. Clearly, it’s the way the game was meant to be played. Turn on the game and your Xbox will connect to Live automatically, even if you just plan to play offline.

Online play is decent. Choose ‘Quick Match’ and within seconds any available games will be listed within seconds. These are displayed one per screen, so cycling through them is counter-intuitive, but it works. Once you get that out of the way, then it’s time to select one of the four unique characters. The fastest player gets the best of the four team members. Once the round beings, you’ll find that most of the flaws I mentioned above are present in full effect, but suddenly they’re not nearly as irritating. It’s fun to work as a team with the other players, storming buildings, blasting tanks, healing each other… it’s not half bad!

Unfortunately, that’s hardly a glowing recommendation. Conflict: Global Terror might be $10 less than its peers, but there’s a reason. If you adore the genre and you’re tired of Battlefield 2 and its ilk, you’ll probably be grateful Pivotal Games for the option. If you can only afford one or two games this year, though, don’t make this one of them.

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