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Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror

by James Sterrett

Article Type: Review
Article Date: July 24, 2002

Product Info

Product Name: Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror
Category: Squad Based Tactical Shooter
Developer: Kamehan Studios
Publisher: Infogrames
Release Date: Released
Rec. Spec: Click Here
Files & Links: Click Here

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Common Bloodline
Most of you are probably familiar with the insanely popular Half-Life mod Counter-Strike. Some of the folks who were involved in polishing it went off and began work on an Unreal Tournament mod by the name of Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror. Now it’s been unleashed on the public. Whether or not you’ll much care for it depends on how much you adore Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament.

Under fire!

While some of the early hype about Tactical Ops centered on its realism, the realism turns out to be much like that of Counter-Strike: it features weapons that look like their real-world counterparts and have features derived from those of their real-world counterparts. In addition, the locations look more or less like real world locations, and the missions are derived from combats that might occur between terrorists and various counter-terrorist teams. Tactical Ops and Counter-Strike are indeed far more realistic than games like the Quake series or Unreal Tournament. However, that’s like saying that James Bond is realistic compared to Pokemon. It’s true, but it doesn’t really say much. Tactical Ops doesn’t compare in realism to such games as SWAT3 or Ghost Recon, just as James Bond doesn’t compare to Das Boot or a John LeCarre novel. “But,” you say, “James Bond is just intended to be madcap and fun!” You’re quite correct! The same is true of Tactical Ops, whose makers stated that they intend it to have realism in terms of “the kind of stuff you see in action movies”.

Tunnel (Un-)Still Life with Flying Blood

Cash for Guns!
Just as in Counter-Strike, in a round of Tactical Ops the two teams start off in their base areas, and all players get a brief period of time in which to buy guns, ammunition, grenades, and body armor. Cash is earned for winning a round, killing enemies, achieving objectives, picking up cash off of dead bodies, picking up drugs for resale (if you’re playing as the terrorists) or evidence (if playing as the police)—and you also get a little cash when you lose. The small dollop is important, because rounds are short, and you’ll often play ten or more rounds on a given map. Survivors keep their kit, while those who die must purchase it anew, so the dollop of cash to the dead ensures they aren’t left too far behind on the weapons power curve. This doesn’t work quite as well as it ought, since the assault rifles and machine guns shred the opposition far better than the cheaper pistols and submachine guns. While skilled players can do quite well with just the basic pistol, the majority will find themselves cannon fodder when they take a pistol up against an assault rifle.

A teammate deals the damage

Here's the Plan…
Mission objectives vary somewhat. Sometimes the terrorists want to escape, sometimes they want to plant a bomb and blow something up, sometimes they must defend hostages the police want to rescue. Either way, the two teams rapidly deploy from their base and combat ensues across the map. Since it’s action movie realism, you can take a fair number of bullets before you die, and damage doesn’t impair your performance in any way. Nonetheless, combat tends to be fast and furious when it occurs, with bullets flying everywhere and combatants engaging in Quake/Unreal-style jump-n-duck acrobatics as they attempt to avoid an opponent’s aim. While only headshots are capable of producing one-shot kills, damage accumulates fast enough to kill people quickly when the heavier weapons come into play.

Mission: Get away! The briefing screens are helpful

There is no "I" in T.E.A.M.
The primary realistic feature in this, in fact, is that teamwork is well rewarded. While highly skilled lone wolves can do well, the best strategy is to try to stick with other players and cooperate in bringing down the enemy. As in Counter-Strike, however, the only groups that really cooperate with any effectiveness are the various online clans. If you’re in a game on your own, the cooperation tends to be minimal, and your ability to cooperate with other players mostly depends on your ability to pick a teammate who is both skilled and more or less willing to have a partner tag along. Teamwork, however, doesn’t frequently appear to any significant further degree in pick-up games. Clans would presumably display the teamwork better.

Following teammates in rapid deployment

AI and Docs
If your skills aren’t too hot, you can practice against bots offline. Sort of. They only loosely engage in teamwork and get stuck on doors, and are also incredibly lethal at almost every skill level; your mileage may vary depending on your skill, but the newbie skill levels ought to allow neophytes to practice shooting, not being shot. Amusingly, their names are close parodies of famous actors or characters, such as “Bruce Swillis”, or “James Bong”.

The manual is barely enough to provide a new player with an introduction to the game. It manages to fail to explain some critical aspects of the game, such as how you get access to grenade-launcher level weaponry, and what the color coding on the manual’s two-page spread of small pictures of weapons actually means. If you’re used to Counter-Strike, then neither the offline bot play nor the manual’s weakness will much bother you. Newbies will be more put off.

Hyperkinetic action

The Inevitable Comparison
Is it better than Counter-Strike? Yes, if you look in terms of a point by point comparison. The maps seem better balanced, and there didn’t appear to be the systemic imbalance favoring the terrorists that I’ve found in my limited Counter-Strike experience. Everything is prettier, and the IFF text is displayed in very large, hard-to-miss letters to make friendly fire easier to avoid. Yet, in overall playtime goodness, it isn’t clearly an improvement. Newer and prettier, better balanced, but not radically different. If you love the Counter-Strike model, then that’s not a bad thing.

Levels generally look good

Is the game actually fun? That depends on what you want. If you’re looking for Counter-Strike using the Unreal Tournament engine, then you’ve got what you want. If you prefer the realism of Operation Flashpoint and Ghost Recon, then you’ll not find Tactical Ops very interesting. Being a fan of the hard-core tactical simulations, Tactical Ops was not my cup of tea. Note, though, that I’ve had some real “let’s keep playing” fun with Counter-Strike, which Tactical Ops generally failed to do. Somehow it just didn’t quite jell properly. You’d think the proven Counter-Strike formula and the madcap hyperkintetics of the Unreal Tournament engine would be a better matchup than this.

Gamespy Arcade provides a possible second to this opinion: there are thousands of people playing Half-Life: Counter-Strike, and barely hundreds listed as playing Tactical Ops. Obviously, Gamespy is far from a perfect statistical sampling tool, but it seems reasonable to conclude that there are people who love Tactical Ops, but they aren’t numerous.

Get it Free! Well, Almost…
There’s a final catch. Chances are that many of you have Unreal Tournament already, even if you’ll not admit it. You can download nearly all of the release package of Tactical Ops as a mod for Unreal Tournament. You’ll miss a few maps, but this way you can sample the delights of the game without shelling out $30US for it. (Or you could buy UT for under $10US, and download the mod.) If you love it, you can pay up for the extra maps.



Reviewer's System:
CPU: Athlon XP 1900
RAM: 256MB
Video: Geforce3
Multiplay: Broadband connection

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