Good, but comparisons to Halo or Brutal (Brute Force (Xbox))

Member Name: Wolfzilla

Product:	Brute Force (Xbox)
Date:	18/12/06 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Graphics, Fun

Disadvantages: A bit easy, lacks Multiplayer edge

Brute Force was released in 2002, and was touted as the best Xbox shooter since Halo, mainly because people were so desperate for Halo 2, any variety of shooter would be snapped up, and Brute Force looked pretty good, so it recieved all the hype in the world. Then was released and forgotten about within the same week. While this was unfortuneate for the makers of the game, for me it turned out pretty good because I ended up getting the game for a fairly low price preowned not too long after it's release.

The game is a third person shooting game where you take control of not one, but four members of an elite Army division in the far flung future. While a lot of people made a lot of the game's 'tactical' aspect, of having a team of four soldiers of different abilities and such, tactics rarely come into it, and it is basically a shoot em up with the gimmick of conrolling a squad. While the differing abilities of the team members do spice things up, I do think that if you were good enough at shooters it would be possible to simply blast your way through the levels.
The four characters that make up your team are Tex the all around gunman whose special ability is wielding two guns at once, Brutus an alien who is the strong/slow one, but has a cool Predator-esque special ability that allows him to see enemies via their heat signals,Hawk the stealthy female, who is quickest but has least energy. Her ability is to turns invisible and sport an energy blade to give you some stealth kills. Finally we have Flint, the female sniper. Her speciality is sniping, so her ability automatically targets the head when activated.
The four soldiers are out to stop an evil alien cult from taking over the universe, that's a rough description of the story, but all you really need to get a gist of things. No one was ever going to buy the game on the grounds of the story anyway were they?

The gameplay disapointed a lot of people who were expecting gameplay identical to Halo, but if you don't try to compare it to Bungie's masterpiece, you will find that the gameplay is actually very enjoyable in it's own right. Despite the fact that as I said, you get the feeling you could just blast through everything, I found myself sniping and stealth killing, basically because it was fun. You can also assign team members to stand and cover you, which is actually pretty cool, having Hawk and Flint snipe enemies as you storm in with Tex and two guns blazing.
If there is one gameplay complaint I have, it's that the single player game is far too easy. It really won't take experienced gamers very long at all to best Brute Force in single player mode. There is a Co-Op mode that is pretty involving and fun, but it actually makes it easier in some ways, apart from arguments over who controls characters. You have around 18 missions to get through, they range from the usual, Get from Point A to Point B, Protect someone,Rescue someone,kill someone etc.
To add life to the game, the makers have given us not one, but two Deathmatch modes. You have single deathmatch, where you pick a character each and slug it out in the familiar style, or Squad, where you pick a squad of 4 and try to take each other out in the same way you play in single player.
The multiplayer, while fun, didn't really get that much play from myself and co. While we did enjoy it while we played, it couldn't really even hope to keep us away from a certain other shooter's multiplayer. You have to unlock different characters for the multiplayer mode by collecting DNA cannisters mid level, this also means that you can't just jump into the Multiplayer and get it all underway, you really need to play the game on single for a while to unlock all the characters to get the maximum experience out of it. It also generally doesn't have any sort of extra edge to make you want ot play it on Multiplayer over other games.

The controls are where the biggest inspiration for all the Halo comparisons come from.

A:Jump
B:Switch Items
X:Pick Up Weapon
Y:Switch Weapon
White:Activate Special ability
L:Grenades
R:Shoot
D-Pad:Change Character
D-Pad (Hold) + A/B/X/Y: Issue orders
Right Thumbstick: Look
Left Thumbstick:Move

As you can see, it isn't miles away from that FPS in terms of control, so if you are used to playing it, chances are you will take to Brute Force's controls like a fish to water. I have no problems with how they are laid out, it's about as good as could be expected. The same goes for the responsiveness, which gave me nothing bad to report.

Graphically, Brute Force is good, but not spectacular. The character models all look good enough to be on the XBox, but they don't come close to pushing the hardware. The stages are pretty cool it has to be said. From the swampy jungles to lava planets, every stage really does capture the feel they were going for. You can almost feel the clammy heat of the jungle and the cold winds of the alien worlds, all of it due to the great stage graphics. While they aren't as detailed as they could have been, they do certainly come accross as very effective anyway, so it can be forgiven.

The sonic aspects of Brute Force are generally good, while not much is spectacular about the music, it certainly does it's job, as do the sound effects. What does need specific attention is the voices, which are at best cool and at worst hilarious, The horrible alien seers have this rather menacing/irritating "where is it?" phrase that makes you want to take them down, but the most comedy certainly comes from Tex, who I found amusing enough for looking like the barman in my local, but whenever he opened his mouth he rose in my comedy estimations. First of all, he has issues with every member of the team, Brutus because he is alien, Hawk because she is a woman and Flint because she is a synthetic woman. This leads to some funny one-liners from him, however one has to wonder about just how macho he is when listening to some of his quotes. Hidden in his tough guy talk are the titles to songs by Elton John and Justin Timberlake ("Im going to Rock Your Body" "Im Still Standing"). Tex's listening habits betray his attempts to act tough.

On the whole, I feel that Brute Force is a highly entertaining game, but it certainly falls short of legendary status due to how easy and short it is, and the fact the multiplayer really doesn't have any sort of edge to distinguish it and make people want to play it before other games.
So, 4 Stars is my score for Brute Force. It certainly kept me entertained while I played it, it's just the fact that it isn't the toughest game in the world, and it was got off to an immediate bad start due to Halo comparisons.
If you like shooters and have an XBox, you will definitely enjoy Brute Force. It isn't the best the console, or the genre has to offer, but it will certainly keep you amused while it lasts, and given that it can be picked up pretty cheaply now, you shouldn't miss out on this fun game.

Review also posted on Epinions.com

Summary: Fans of shooters with Xboxes should give BF a look, it isn't perfect, but it's certainly a good time