Close Combat: First to Fight Review

Making a great video game is very much like making love to a woman (No one who works here at ActionTrip.com knows anything about either topic -Ed.). You can have the greatest technique in the world and the best visuals, but if you don't get the feel right, in the end no one is biting into your product. Or something like that. I'm sure there was a great analogy here, but I lost the thread and now it's gone (Much like those who were reading this article -Ed.).

Meet the mannequin gang.

This guy has some major problems in li... I mean death.

But it's true. Destineer's new game "Close Combat: First to Fight" is a prime example of this. Hailed as the most realistic military shooter ever released (with two separate versions of the game: one for US Army training purposes and the other for commercial use), with an advanced AI that was supposed to factor in the psychological side of combat, Close Combat delivers in some regards and bombs on others.

In the game, you play a U.S. Marine squad leader, deployed to Lebanon to fight off the Syrian forces who are trying to take control of the country. If you have been following world news in recent weeks, then you've surely heard that Syrian forces were driven out of Lebanon under strong US pressure, therefore possibly prolonging the inevitable attack on that country. You could say therefore that the game's story is partly based on real life events, which should indeed explain (to some degree) why this particular game is used for training purposes.

Technically, at first glance, the game looks and plays good. Although the characters do look a bit lifeless, with expressionless faces devoid of any emotion, the 3D foundation of the engine is pretty damn solid. The textures are sharp and the use of advanced dynamic shadows, pixel shaders, bump mapping and other graphical hoo-hahs is more than apparent. This makes Close Combat look pretty. The limited but effective use of rag doll physics is also commendable, and I just love how the aiming is handled, as well as the locational damage on the enemy models. Taking down guys from mid range with an assault rifle feels just right... in gameplay terms of course. (Not that I know how taking someone down with an assault rifle would feel in real life... if we don't count small birds and alley cats (Or the occasional wino -Ed.).) Technically, everything looks and plays as though it was real, and the controls are good enough to make the action seamless and very intense at times.

Your squad mates act the way they should for the most part, meaning that if you know how to order them around, you'll be able to keep most of them alive and out of harm's way. Hey, they'll even know how to climb up and down ladders. Who would've thought that USMC's finest knew how to do that! Granted, they do tend to stay in the open a lot more than they should, even if you expressly order them to take cover, but this drawback hasn't affected the gameplay for me in any major way. At first, the enemy AI seems decent too, but then Close Combat starts exhibiting some of its more obvious flaws. I swear to God, the intelligence of your opponents drops as you progress through the levels. I'm not kidding. I think the developers might've had less time to play-test some of the later levels in the game. I don't know what the problem is, but as you progress through the game, the Syrians will tend to get stuck on walls, or just stand there as you put a few bullets in their chest (They don't do either of those things in real life? Who knew! -Ed.).

Another apparent flaw that arises from longer exposure to this game is the torrid level design. The claustrophobic, limited, and very confusing design of the levels totally kills any sort of immersion that might've built up along the way. You do feel like you're stuck on a small training ground, and you definitely do not feel like you're taking part in an urban conflict in the city of Beirut. There's usually one hallway and one door you can pass through and even with such limited options, I would still often wander around the same two damn streets looking for the exit to the next mission area. While the action itself can be pretty fun, the poorly designed maps just kill any sort of enjoyment you might've gotten out of it.

Neat vacation spot?

I said shaken, not stirred! Goddamn terrorist bartenders.

As for the game's advanced features, like Air strike support and the psychological aspect of AI's behavior, they are present in the game, but they're not in any way a major factor of it. Your soldiers get more experienced as they become battle hardened, but I never really saw any noticeable changes in their behavior that would make me stop for a second and go: "Hey, cool!" I guess that if you concentrate you might be able to notice these subtle changes, but then what's the point of putting in a feature that's so hard to spot? If you're going to advertise the game in a way that highlights innovative features, you should damn well make sure those much-ballyhooed features play an integral role in its gameplay. That is just not the case in Close Combat.

Would I recommend this game to you? If you're a hardcore military buff, I might recommend it to you for the fun firefights. Other than that, I think you're better off getting SWAT 4. That one flows much better and has a much nicer feel to it. Two very important qualities that are crucial to the art of making love to a woman. Or so people tell me. (Or as a safety net, a credit card with a very high limit -Ed.)