written by Blain Newport on Wednesday, July 1, 2009
I added my name to the "written on" line. Apparently at least one person copied one of my reviews for their own blog. How sad is that?
For no apparent reason I finally polished off the last couple levels of Brute Force, a semi-tactical third person action game. My understanding is that the game was a victim of huge hype that it couldn't possibly live up to, so it got torn apart critically. As someone who generally hates tactical games, I found it satisfying (3 of 5). I think that's mostly because it gives me pretty good toys to play with. Squad commands are simple. Jumping between squad members is simple. I've got sniping, cloaking, and heavy weapons. Who wouldn't like that?
The game does somewhat shoot itself in the foot in the end by getting overly difficult. When you've got rocket guys in towers, ground troops, turrets, snipers, and mines to contend with, it starts to bog down. Plus there are guys with multi-rocket launchers who can almost kill the toughest guy you've got with one shot when he's using his special defensive power. That's lame and forces a dull, overly careful play style. Maybe they were worried the game would be too easy in co-op, but that's no reason to bog down single player. Plus the resolution is so low that just seeing what's going on is challenging in split screen co-op.
The other main problem the game has is that it's painfully generic. I don't remember the names of any of the enemy races. The tough guy on your team is a lizard man. The sniper is an android, not that she looks it. None of it goes anywhere or means anything. The coolest thing about the game's theatrics is that Susan Eisenberg (Wonder Woman from Justice League) is one of the main characters. Having that voice in the squad made me happy. Just like one of the best things from Dark Sector was having the main character voiced by Michael Rosenbaum (Flash from Justice League) doing his Deadshot voice. Just the like the best thing from Mercs 2 (if I ever get around to playing it) will be playing the character voiced by Phil Lamarr, doing basically his Green Lantern voice. If he, even once, yells "Light 'em up!", I will have a warm memory of that game.
The other other main problem with the game is that it's pretty much always the exact same scenario. Assault. One of your characters can disarm enemy mines and then reposition them. I felt really devious stacking them up in my inventory until I realized I'm never on defense, so I'd never get to use them. Maybe the stealth character could have managed to put them in front of a patrol, but since she can safely and quickly slice up the patrol with her energy blade, why bother? Regardless, the game desperately needed some variety.
I popped in Spider-Man 2. It hung. Maybe the hours I'd been playing Brute Force were the problem (which would mean the Xbox was overheating). Maybe it is the Spider-Man 2 disc. I'm befuddled.
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