Review - Tactical Intervention

So, I had an opportunity to play a PC game called Tactical Intervention today. It's by a company called OG Planet. It's a free game that you can play, provided you download their free game client.

At first, when I loaded up the game and got into my first lobby, there were twelve guys there who were really cool. They told me all about the game, gave me pointers, and helped me and another guy figure out which keys did what.

So let's begin there.

Graphics, Settings, and Keybindings

The graphics in this game were very well done -- especially considering it's a free-to-play game. In fact, I'd say that the art direction was so superb that it's clear they focused on that to the exclusion of gameplay. More on that in a bit.

The settings on this game are well done. You can change the graphics to your liking, eliminate many unnecessary options, and customize which keys do what.

The default key bindings for this game gave me hand cramp. So the first thing I was forced to do was quit the game and then rebind everything so that I could function. In addition, I had to drop down the graphics settings a bit because I was running at less than 60 FPS. I was able to get the settings to a point where I ran at 160 FPS, so that was perfect.

Gameplay

The first lobby I was in was awesome. I was with really helpful guys who understood the game and were able to give me pointers. However, after that first lobby, I then joined seven different lobbies and was destroyed in each lobby by senior members who have been playing the game since beta. That's right, they didn't reset the game after beta. So all they really did was simply stop calling it beta.

All of the default guns that they give you are worthless. I emptied clip after clip into a guy who was AFK, and then finally had to whap him on the head with my uzi to kill him. I took a shotgun and blasted a dog right in the face and it didn't kill the dog. Let me repeat that. A gun... didn't stop a dog... from eating me.

I spent three hours getting absolutely destroyed and one-shot by everybody who had been in the game during the beta. All the new people like me had equal opportunities to kill each other but were slaughtered when they encountered anyone else.

The Pros

1. Maps are gorgeous and very fun. Even Morning Calm -- which is just a square zen garden -- is fun to roam around in. I particularly like the construction site because it's open and would have made an awesome sniper board.
2. Parkour is one of the things that I love most about games like this and it always upsets me when there is an invisible wall preventing me from jumping or climbing onto an object. This game has no such problems. I was climbing onto towers, cement trucks, security buildings, and all kinds of stuff. It was great.
3. Opening and closing doors will allow you to access back rooms and corridors to sneak around behind enemies -- not that you can sneak up on anyone in this game (see below).
4. Interacting with objects was a real treat. You can shoot fire extinguishers to turn them into makeshift missiles and you can kick over trash cans and clear off countertops easily. I loved that.
5. Glass is beautiful in this game. When you shoot it, it crazes and then you can burst through it like a hero. Lots and lots of fun. You can even shoot out little bits and pieces if you're careful to make a smiley face.
6. Auto-roll kicks in if you fall from a second story or something. Basically, when you land you do a roll and then come up firing. It's a little dizzying, but otherwise awesome.
7. Injuries are shown on the guys as they run. So if you take one in the leg, you'll hobble and if you take one in the arm, you'll favor that side. Very realistic.
8. Teamwork, or standing anywhere near a team member, will boost your accuracy. I liked that a lot because it has huge potential for squad-based stuff. Sadly, no one wanted to squad because they were busy being Rambo.

The Cons

1. The people finder allows the enemy to know exactly where you are, run directly to you, and then murder you without compunction. You cannot hide at any time. There's no strategy. No thinking. No going around the long way to kill a guy from behind because he can see you through walls. It's the single dumbest thing I've ever seen in a shooter. Everybody knows where everybody is at all times. So if you're the last guy standing, there is zero chance of a glorious comeback.
2. Pay to destroy is when you can purchase weapons of amazing power by either plopping down cash or playing the game for weeks and amassing huge point totals to purchase weapons. In this game, you can rent amazing guns that allow you to destroy people while being given "standard" (read nerfed) weapons that don't do crap. I played for three hours and earned 474 points. You'd have to play almost thirty hours to earn enough for an AK-47. So bad. They give you some points to start with, but once those are gone, you're expendable.
3. Dogs could be such a really cool aspect to the game -- except they can't be killed with a shotgun. So they just destroy you. And the dogs are a terrorist only perk. That's retarded to give only one team huge bonus perks and hope the other team can compensate.
4. Scoring makes no sense of any kind. We lost a game 2-770. WTF is that all about? It clearly wasn't 770 kills because we were in a game mode where if you died once, that was it for that round.
5. Shared Sniper Rifle apparently the sniper rifle is a special thing that only one guy is allowed to have at a time. So when you die, the game decides if it's your turn to use it and then gives you a message. Are you kidding me? I'm a sniper. That's what I do. I had to die to get the rifle and then when I died, I couldn't snipe anymore. Who thought that was a good idea? And this was confirmed by the guys in the game who played in the beta.
6. Spawns are straight up awful. Four bad guys spawned in front of me and -- if I was level 16 -- I easily could have killed them all. I can't count the number of times I was spawn killed. Truly, truly poor planning on the level design team.
7. Other mode types were talked about, but I was unable to find them. It was team death match and only team death match as far as I could see.
8. Aiming down sights was a huge problem for everyone and that's all I kept hearing was, "How do I aim?" this game isn't about skill, it's about peppering a room with bullets and killing everyone because you've been playing the game the longest.

Final Thoughts

This game is representative of everything that's wrong with first person shooter games. The game is horribly nerfed against new people coming in and showing people who have been their for a while how it's done. So you are basically fodder for the senior members of the game unless you happen to be in a room with all noobs. I got dozens of assists where I would shoot someone and then the one guy on our team who played the beta would finish the job.

This game is designed for mindless hip-shooters who want to waste a few hours chasing each other around the board. It requires zero strategy. No thought, whatsoever.

Apparently, this game was in a year-long beta and NO ONE caught any of these things or cared to change them. I'm guessing that's why on launch day, there were only seventy people playing this free game. This is without question a pass.