by ... Maurice Fitzgerald

Last minute plans and words of encouragement come across your commlink. You add your thoughts to the matter, and receive last minute orders before the battle commences. All of a sudden the quiet is broken by the distant din of small arms fire mixed with the low rumble of heavy weapons. The battle is joined, and your quiet reverie is broken as you leap into the fray.

Sounds like a narrative from a movie or excerpt from a book? Well it’s not, it’s the latest rage in multiplayer gaming and it’s catching on quick… multiplayer squad shooters. The days of deathmatch are still going strong and will until the end of time; everyone feels the call of mano a mano contest. But we’re finally seeing the dawn of a new age, something more cerebral than what we’ve gotten used to.

No longer are we limited to just ‘fragging’ the other guy, of games relying solely on body counts. Now there are missions and clear-cut objectives to accomplish. There are three games I’ve been playing a lot that accomplish this very well. These games demonstrate the strong need for teamwork in this new age of multiplayer gaming: Rainbow Six,(including the Eagle Watch Mission Pack) Delta Force and Starsiege:Tribes. 

In Rainbow Six you play the role of a shooter on the CT team ‘Rainbow,’ and the successful completion of the mission is heavily dependent on good teamwork and strong communication. Yes, you can try to play Rambo, but odds are you’ll end up drowning in a pool of your own blood most of the time.

With the AI accuracy sometimes superhuman it pays to work together and come at them from different angles of attack. Team tactics means that one causes a diversion and draws attention, while the other ventilates them from behind. 

The same holds true for head to head matches. With the weapons and damage modeling set firmly in the real world there are no second chances: you get shot you 'die'. Nothing is as unpredictable, deadly and at times downright funny as the human factor.

Add a real person on the other end of that cyber 'barrel' and it's whole new ball game. Find yourself a steady group of people to play with on a consistent basis, and after a while you'll know each other's moves without needing to communicate much. Once at this level you will not only enjoy playing more, but you will get a small taste and much greater appreciation of how CT operatives work in real life.

Tribes.

In Dynamix’s newest release, Tribes, you are again forced to cooperate as the team goals are what determine whether you to win or lose a mission. You can go out there and get 20-30 or even 40 frags and still lose the game if you don’t accomplish the mission objectives. I love this style of gameplay and have been yearning for it for far too long. I love working as part of a team and Tribes forces you to do so if you want to win. 

Novalogic’s Delta Force is the closest thing to playing paintball I’ve experienced in a multiplayer game online. Even the paintball mods for Quake haven’t given me the feeling of urgency nor the adrenaline rush I get from playing Delta Force CTF.

The biggest difference between Tribes, Rainbow Six and Delta Force is in the freedom of movement that Novalogic has given us with their Voxelspace engine. Rainbow Six is limited to a certain amount of space as is Tribes. This is fine because it fits the missions given.

Delta Force.

You’re not going to go tripping across 10 km of terrain to try to backdoor a tango in a hostage rescue, and with the short time limits of Tribes you’ll need to stay close to the action as well. Delta Force gives you the freedom to go anywhere you want to accomplish your goals, and I think that’s one of the greatest aspects of DF multiplayer.

I LOVE the fact that you can go anywhere and are given the freedom to come up with different tactics each time. That’s where the team aspect comes shining through: each player takes a different role in the team. You have your snipers, your flag runners and your counter snipers as well as those nuts who just like to run into the other teams flag station and raise a lot of hell! 

Click to continue . . .

Eaglewatch

With the advent of voice software and the expansion of gameplayers bandwidth now that cable modems have become more prevalent, team play is becoming even more of a hot commodity and will continue to increase over time. One great example of Delta Force CTF that sticks out vividly in my mind was a game I was playing in several weeks ago.

We were playing on a map with 30 flags to capture (I forget the name of the map but it’s the one with the radio tower) and it was a brutal game. Each team had fought hard for every flag and it literally came down to the wire. Each team had grabbed their last flag and it was off to the races as each flag runner was trying to beat the other one back to their respective flag bay. The Blue team beat us back and snatched victory from us with our runner just FEET from the flag pole and only 13 seconds left on the clock!!

When we changed maps everyone from both sides took a few seconds breather and we had an unspoken ‘truce’ as everyone congratulated each other on such a great game. After several moments of post game compliments the next battle was on and again we slugged out several more hard fought games until the end. It was one of those times when both teams had people who listened and worked together to accomplish a common goal. I didn’t know any of these people from Adam but I had a feeling of comradeship with my fellow gamers that left me with a great feeling you just won't get from deathmatch. 

Another great aspect of team play are the friends and rivals you will meet and make online. I always try to look for players I’ve worked with before to team up with, and at the same time I always try to take a new role on a team to sort of ‘cross train’. I’ve mainly enjoyed being a runner, but lately I’ve been trying to stack up a bigger body count by bagging snipers, every flag runner’s worst nightmare.

I guess it’s because I know the feeling of dread when I hear that fearsome sound of a Barrett light .50 as it sprays the dirt around me as I near my objective flag. Let’s just say it can elevate one's heart beat a couple of notches to know you’re directly in someone’s sights, to say the least. I occasionally will take a trip out with the .50 myself but prefer running to sniping.

Team play squad shooters are bringing us a new side to gaming that is long overdue, and one that adds a great deal of enjoyment to me personally. I’ve never been a big deathmatch fan and prefer teamwork to single person achievements. It’s nice to rack up the kills but it’s more enjoyable for me to save my buddy’s neck when he’s in a jam and have him return the favor to me when my butt is in a sling.

As you may guess, I’ve made a lot of friends online and plan on continuing to do so well into the future. If you haven’t played Delta Force CTF yet or Rainbow Six or even TRIBES I urge you to go out and pick one up. You’ll have a ton of fun and be introduced to a really great community of players and you will NOT regret it.

The biggest hurdle with team style play is communication. You probably won’t know anyone at first when playing a pickup game, but as you go along and play you’ll start seeing the same names over and over again and will make new friends and acquaintances.  After playing with and against these players you’ll start learning their styles of play, and by effectively using your chat feature in the game you’ll be able to coordinate your movements and attacks with your teammates.

What would I love to see in the future of multiplayer gaming? Dynamic campaigns where each side's actions affect the outcome of the whole situation in a complete, interactive world. I think we just may see things like that popping up and it will greatly increase the replay value of any game whose developer can get this idea right.

Dynamix already has introduced us to some of the concepts that can be used with their command and control setup within TRIBES. Novalogic has shown us the direction with their voice commands in Delta Force. But this can only increase and grow by continued input from gamers. Believe it or not, these companies do listen. So if you have an idea or two send 'em to your favorite developer, or send them to one of us here at Combatsim.Com and we’ll make sure they get into the right hands.

Until then keep your heads low, ammo fresh, your sh*t wired and check six!