Thanks to the initial fumbling, Conflict: Desert Storm gets off to a slow start. While apparently providing a system that enables you to conduct orders on-the-fly, wrestling the control pad in the middle of a mission had us wishing for a simple overhead map and menus that tell you what they're for, rather than the ambiguous icons provided.
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#Conflict desert storm review how to
We really shouldn't have to repeatedly refer to the manual in order to remember how to simply get our comrades to follow us, let alone how to get them to lay prone and provide covering fire in a certain direction, which is certainly possible if you can be bothered to figure it out.
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Pivotal has clearly made an effort to craft a lot of function into the system, but hasn't made a good enough job of providing the player with visual clues as to what does what. man?Īnd we haven't even got to the command interface yet. Without some kind of grouping of weapons and items or even some kind of hot key system for your most frequently used options, combat and even simple functions like placing an explosive charge become chores. Selecting weapons, or medi-kits, or any object of your inventory requires that you hold Y, scroll up or down with the D-pad, find what you want, use it, then scroll all the way back to your weapon using the same process. To enter first person mode requires a press of the left shoulder button all the way in until it clicks, but to enter the second level of zoom requires a second press, but not all the way in, otherwise you'll send yourself back out into third-person again. It's in the first mission of the game that you realise just how unwieldy the button combinations for even aiming and shooting are - let alone commanding troops. Once you've rescued your pal, you are in direct control of them both, controlling one and ordering the other via the command interface. This mission serves to break you into the decidedly alternative nature of C:DS' combat, and sees you struggling with the third-person automatic aim feature, then struggling to get the first-person aiming mode to work properly, and struggling to actually kill any of the enemy soldiers while you're at it. The game starts off with you in control of one man on a search and rescue mission, attempting to track down a demolitions expert who was captured trying to blow up an Iraqi-held bridge. Angular landscapes, low-res textures, chunky player models and animation that seems to have been motion-captured from a robotic dance troupe all do their best to make C:DS look an absolute stinker which, as we soon find out, it is not. They weren't great when we last saw them, but time hasn't been kind and Conflict: Desert Storm looks absolutely tragic. Like a swift kick to the groin they hit you, and boy is it painful. A bit of rough There goes the firework factory.Īh yes, now I remember. Conflict always sort of sat somewhere between the two, but hopefully the long-coming GameCube port can resurrect our faith. We've seen a few more tactical action titles come our way - some succeeding admirably, and others flopping pathetically.
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We've come a long way in the eight months or so since we last played Conflict: Desert Storm on the PS2.