Counter Terrorist Special Forces: Fire for Effect

PS2 review by James Frazer, published on Thursday 16th June 2005

Terrorists; the only group of human beings currently residing on earth that can have a videogame franchise revolve around shooting them to pieces, without anyone actually giving a *beep*. Stick a black gangster in the middle of San Andreas, and get sued for stereotyping. Shoot an ethnic minority with a hitman, and get sued for racism. Drive fast modded cars around real life cities, and get sued for encouraging drivers to disobey traffic laws. Make a game where a group of American Marines storm through Middle-eastern towns, shooting the whole place to pieces and no one will complain. Now I’m not standing up for terrorists one bit, but it’s just interesting as to how the media and public react to games which all evolve around killing; you can blow up one or two groups of polygon people, yet it’s not acceptable to do the same to another. Very interesting indeed.

Counter Terrorist Special Forces: Fire for Effect is the latest title to allow gamers to fight off the evil that threatens our everyday western lives, and thankfully, saving the world won’t burn a massive hole in your pocket. At roughly 47p for every letter in the game’s title (or £20 to you and me), sinking hot lead into the terrorist scum has never been as budget-friendly. And besides the lack of a 60 Hz mode for PAL users, Hip Entertainment hasn’t skimped with the package, either. If Kill.Switch was to make passionate love to Syphon Filter, this is what would pop up in nine month’s time.

There are two playable characters here, Owl and Raptor, who thankfully differ in skills far, far more than Snake and Raven. The former operative, Owl, has been playing far too much Splinter Cell (who hasn’t?) for his own good, and in my opinion is the most likeable, due to the fact he simply does more. You can use his sniper rifle to clear the path ahead of enemies, scream in Ninja-style and kick everyone’s arses or free-fall into areas undetected by radar. This guy is so cool.

The same can’t be said for his partner in anti-crime, Raptor, who seems to have spent all his time playing Driv3r (who has?), and as such only ever seems to drive vehicles and shoot things. Sounds fun, I’ll admit to that, but when Owl is skipping about like Steven Seagal and James Bond, Raptor is gunning it Rambo-style, beating his chest and firing off far more bullets than 3 takes with Arnie on Predator

Both characters have items of interest, Owl with a cloaking device that aids him in his sneaking around, and Raptor owning a rechargeable shield to dampen damage. They also have very different weapons. Rambo, I mean Raptor, has a quadruple homing missile launcher, which is every bit as devastating as it sounds, so much so the writing automatically changes to italic in it’s presence. Owl, not to be outdone by Sam Fisher, has various modes of sight aids such as thermal imaging and night vision, as well as a camp little gun with very short supplies of ammunition.

Littered around the various environments are enemy vehicles, and if you see it then there’s a pretty good chance you can ‘jack it and use them against the enemy. Snowmobiles, tanks, hovercraft, they’re all here. It’s just a shame that they seem quite bland and handle badly, with there not being much advantage when in possession other than quickly escaping attacks and destroying large volumes of troops.

There is an Achilles heel however, as the difficulty level often rises from piss easy to bloody hard in a matter of seconds. The best example of this is the tutorial at the start of the game, which at first threw me off the scent. One minute you’re bouncing grenades around, next minute running down a corridor battling with the control system to try and shoot down targets in a tight space of time. However, when going through the levels, there are plenty of areas to cover from the barrage of firepower, Kill.Switch style, and as Owl you can just make the stealth suit kick in, sit tight and wait shortly (there’s no watching guard patterns here) for a window of opportunity. Generally the whole game moves at a frightfully fast pace, with a few sections in between to slow you down and give you a slight breather and to take in what you just went through.

Graphically, the phrase is ‘not bad’. There’s no Splinter Cell or Metal Gear environments, with the style more likened to Freedom Fighters on a bad hair day. There’s also nothing like lobbing a grenade into cover, to watch the fleeing terrorists being thrown 20 feet into the air from the blast. What’s also great is that blast victims won’t slide down walls or disappear through balconies; if they’re blown onto a ledge, their corpse will thud onto it and stay there, which seems to make the experience even more enjoyable.

The story surrounding CTSF takes place in cut scenes, a few of which are particularly cheesy, with some good convincing voice acting and a soundtrack several milestones ahead of the competition. You won’t be gripped by the balls in regards to the story, in fact the frantic pace at which the levels fly by will urge you on far more, but for £20 this is far more than I expected.

Compared to the heavyweight titles, Counter Terrorist Special Forces: Fire for Effect is blown out of the water. But on its own, this is a solid, well presented game that’ll please a good majority of those that stump up the measly asking price. Basic AI won’t make your eyes fall out, but as something to quench your thirst for a fast paced action game, this is perfect.