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Combat Task Force 121 
Release date: 27 Mar 2005
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Mygamer review
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Does No Frills = No Good?
The budget game world is a strange place indeed. What other market releases products that are all but expected to have glaring deficiencies from the outset, yet still somehow manage to sell relatively well? Groove Games’ Combat Task Force 121 is one such example, another watery drop in the ocean of Xbox first-person shooters with its own set of rhetorical questions, such as: besides the central player, where’s the rest of the ‘task force’? And what’s with the ‘121’? Still, beneath its largely bland single-player campaign, Combat Task Force 121’s Xbox Live offering is unexpectedly entertaining for the run-and-gun addict in search of a quick frag fix.
Combat Task Force 121 enlists the player as a member of an “elite covert unit comprised of Navy Seals, Green Berets, Army Rangers and USMC Recon personnel” yet the only way you’ll ever know this is by reading the back of the box. Any shred of setting or narrative is simply omitted from the manual and the game itself, as from the first mission onward the player is tossed into random scenarios against “Marxist rebels” almost as if the developers gave up on crafting any kind of relevant context for their game.
Gameplay
Core gameplay consists of basic FPS action with an emphasis on leaning out from behind covering walls for pot shots. Weapon selection is mapped to the D-pad, with different directions pulling out the primary weapon, secondary weapon/grenade, pistol, and combat knife. This system appears functional at first but later collapses under pressure. Leaning directionally on the pad takes more time than swiftly tapping a button, which often leaves the player vulnerable for critically precious moments. On more than one occasion a directional selection will bring out the wrong weapon, a severe glitch that proves as deadly as it is confusing.
The single-player campaign’s 10 levels are as linear as a straight line, ‘spiced’ up with fetch quests for keycards, which slow the pace of the action to a mere crawl. This problem clears up somewhat later in the game, but yet another fragmented mechanic holds back the pace—searching enemies’ pockets. The only way to gather additional ammunition for your weaponry, save for random ammo hidden in baskets, is to pilfer downed enemies, which requires you to focus on the corpse and hold the ‘A’ button for about 4 seconds while a progress bar fills. Couple this tedious process with the fact that enemy bodies disappear once dead, and quickly searching every cadaver soon becomes vital. Thankfully, the game’s levels speed past in the hands of a competent player (but with agonizingly long loading times). But while the experience lasts, the savvy gamer will search as many enemies as possible for supplies, an act that quickly becomes tiresome.
In fact, progress bars mar the speed of almost any in-game action—using ID cards, elevators, and even picking up keys takes a second or two, all acts that should be instantaneous when it comes to intrinsic gameplay mechanics. Speaking of delayed actions, every foe encountered seems to have a crack addiction, as nothing short of a clear headshot will provoke any kind of reaction or indication of damage, making for some annoyingly frustrating firefights. If it wasn’t for the slight mist of blood that falls out of the zone of impact, you’d have no way of knowing if a shot hit home. The ambiguous damage indicator, questionable aiming system, and total lack of mid-mission health options like med kits make for some ‘interesting’ combat, to say the least.
Stealth might seem a favorable alternative to the game’s broken gun battles, but this feature has its own fair share of troubles. Random grates can be opened and traversed in order to sneak up on patrolling guards, but maneuvering behind foes without them noticing is quite some task for such a minimal payoff. Even more irritatingly, enemies occasionally spawn right in front of your eyes, instantaneously getting the drop on you. Your ever-present combat knife, touted as a one-hit kill solution for stealthy players, is also useless due to high enemy rates of fire and extreme alertness. Even up close and in a foe’s face your options are limited to the knife, with no melee attack option. What was once a novelty has become a necessity in recent years, and the lack of a pistol-whip attack or a swung rifle-butt creates a definite void in gameplay dynamics. Given a hypothetical melee option, the A.I. is so predictable that the impact of such an addition is negligible.
Graphics
Combat Task Force 121’s HUD is indicative of the game as a whole—plain, with absolutely no frills. The same could be said of its graphics, which remain bland and nondescript throughout. The sole exceptions are the player’s weapon models, all of which strangely exude a higher quality than the game’s animations, environments and character models. Performance takes the occasional hit with strange glitches, where light sources appear through solid surfaces and the frame rate drops frequently in larger areas. Overall, the visuals achieve the expected level of quality for a budget Xbox title.
Sound
The game’s sound is likewise nothing exceptional, with generic orchestrations accompanying the combat. Sound effects are barely existent, and the few voiceovers in attendance inspire new levels of player disgust. Thankfully, these horrid excursions into voice acting are delegated primarily to the briefing screens preceding each new level.
Replay
So the single-player campaign is horrendous and short, the game feels broken; what is a gamer to do? Well, if you have an Xbox Live account, you’re in luck. Despite all of the major flaws listed above, Live play is surprisingly fun in a cheap-and-dirty alternative-to-Halo 2 kind of way.
When joining a game, there are five character classes to choose from: Soldier, Sniper, Heavy Weapons, Close Quarters, and Demolitions. Each player type has its own load-out based on common conventions, so the Sniper gets a sniper rifle, Close Quarters gets a shotgun, and so forth. The different load-outs for each class combined with the D-pad weapon system makes it abundantly clear what Combat Task Force 121 was designed for—the multiplayer experience.
Sporting an offline training mode, split screen, system link, and bot use as well as online play, the true purpose of Combat Task Force 121 becomes overwhelmingly obvious. Multiplayer rounds are infused with a raw kind of energy reminiscent of the original Doom’s heated Death Matches. The game modes themselves are the usual offerings of Death Match, Capture the Flag, Last Man Standing, and Protect the VIP, with straight-up fragging as the optimal choice. All 13 maps can be played with any game type, with level designs paralleling the game’s no-frills action philosophy.
Still, a few things mar the overall experience—the D-pad weapon glitch apparent in the campaign mode wreaks havoc at inopportune times, there are no sources of ammo if you run dry, and occasionally you’ll spawn right in front of another player’s leveled shotgun barrel. While it won’t replace the triple-A shooters and strategic combat titles played on Xbox Live, Combat Task Force 121’s online game is infinitely more enjoyable than its single-player counterpart and can be a downright guilty pleasure in controlled bursts.
In The End
The question is should you answer the call or sit out this particular war? Despite its many flaws, if a little mindless old-school shooting sounds good and you’ve got a Gamertag, then give it a rental. However, if you’re one of the poor folks reading this over a 56k analog dial up, you should probably skip it. While Groove Games’ nameless soldier won’t dethrone Master Chief anytime soon, an online sortie every now and then could be just what the field doctor ordered.
Review by Ben Serviss on 12 May 2005
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