When Marxist rebels begin to incite revolution through their despicable terrorist acts, Task Force 121 is called into action. Made up of Navy Seals, Green Berets, Army Rangers, and Marine Recon specialists, this team of Special Ops elite is sent to five rebel hot spots, to combat terrorism through ten levels of first-person shooter action. Internet-connected players can battle together online, where eight modes of play are supported, including Deathmatch, King of the Hill, Capture the Flag, Escort, and Last Man Standing. AI bots are available to provide practice in off-line play. Task Force 121 was built on a version of the Unreal engine.
Task Force 121 is a thoroughly rudimentary military-themed first-person shooter that puts the bulk of its focus on online play. Up to 16 people can play online, and there are several different modes of play. While this might sound like a pretty good deal, the unbalanced shooting mechanics and mostly lousy maps pretty much do away with that notion right away. And the thoroughly terrible single-player campaign further reinforces this fact. Had the developer perhaps just skipped the single-player portion altogether to spend some more time hammering out the problems with its multiplayer, the game might have turned into a decent little shooter for online-shooter fans. In this form, however, Task Force 121 simply can't compete with the myriad other shooters available for the PC.
Task Force 121 includes LAN and online multiplayer modes, which support up to 16 players. Multiplayer games include general and team variations of capture the flag, deathmatch, king of the hill, and last man standing, as well as a game called VIP escort, where one player acts as a VIP who must be escorted to a safe zone while the other team tries to kill him. On paper, all this sounds great. There are a nice variety of modes, the interface is simple and easy to use, and in every game different players can play as different class types, such as basic soldiers, close-quarters combatants (who prefer weaponry like shotguns), demolitionists, heavy-weaponry combatants, and snipers. Unfortunately, once you get into the action, it all becomes painfully clear that no amount of game modes can make Task Force 121 enjoyable to play.
The main problems with the multiplayer gameplay have to do with the weapons. There are six guns in the game, including a pistol, a shotgun, and a few different types of machine guns. While each weapon feels initially like it packs a good punch, some of the balancing between weapons feels kind of strange. Shotguns, for instance, are almost always one-hit killers, so long as you're near an enemy. Conversely, some of the larger assault rifles seem like they take way too many hits to actually bring down an opponent. Apart from this, the action just has a tired, bland feel to it. The maps are a big part of this problem, because they don't have much variety to offer. The corridors are often too cramped to be much fun, and even the open spaces seem to lack much in the way of space. Plus, certain soldier classes, like snipers, feel altogether useless in a lot of maps, because there are rarely any good vantage points to properly play them. The multiplayer as a whole feels severely antiquated. The PC version's multiplayer does feel a little quicker, which is a plus, but it still isn't all that great. If you're a forgiving person and don't mind the weird balancing and mediocre maps--and are in desperate need of some run-and-gun action--then Task Force 121 is serviceable. But there are loads of shooters available for the PC that do FPS multiplayer better than this game.
If you're not interested in the online multiplayer, Task Force 121's stock drops even farther, especially when you factor in that the game has absolutely nothing to offer in the way of a single-player experience. Well, OK, it does have a single-player campaign, but it's so unabashedly lame that you won't want to bother with it. Essentially consisting of a scattershot collection of brief missions with seemingly unintentionally hilarious names like "Operation Crazed Liberty" and "Operation Outraged Tension," the mode is just no fun. Basically, all the missions are a bunch of fetch quests where you have to find keys, safe combinations, and other assorted bric-a-brac before getting to the end. That's it. You must get from point A to point B and find a key or something in between.
In between all that, you'll shoot a bad guy here and there. Though the developer did go to the trouble of making the enemy artificial intelligence at least decently smart, it apparently couldn't be bothered to add things like health packs. This teams with the game's checkpoint system--which starts you out with depleted health after you die--to cause you a great deal of frustration. All in all, the single-player campaign will probably take you only a few frustrating hours to blast through. And at no point is it ever fun. Thus, those without multiplayer on the brain will have a terrible time with Combat: Task Force 121.
Task Force 121's graphics are mediocre. There are only a few character skins to choose from, none of which look all that great, and the models animate in a pretty herky-jerky fashion. All the maps have a decidedly muddy look to them, with a lot of nasty-looking textures, ugly set pieces, and occasional sections of the environment that don't look quite finished; and even with the unremarkable visuals, the game still has slowdown issues that pop up in certain areas. The PC version predictably is about a half step above the Xbox version graphically, but there aren't any notable differences beyond a slightly cleaner overall look. The audio is perhaps the one saving grace of Task Force 121. When you're in combat, the echoes of gunshots can be quite fierce, and they sound wholly realistic. Similarly, though the enemy dialogue is a little on the repetitive side, it's well recorded and delivered and isn't so prevalent that you'll be hearing it constantly. Unfortunately, there's not much in the way of music in the game, and what is there isn't very impressive.
Combat: Task Force 121 is a game that seems content to stick closely to the quality of those budget shooters that have come before it. While the online play is merely average at best, its single-player play and its overall production values are seriously subpar.
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