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US Army Infantry all the way! Hoo-Ah!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 29
Date: November 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Ever wanted that game that actually makes you feel like you're in the heat off a battle as a US Army Infantryman? Well this is the game to do it. You take control of different squads of infantryman (Rangers, Airborne, normal Infantry, etc.) as you send them through an urban area. Following the full ways of the United States Army (including Roles Of Engagement, Weapons, and Tactics) you must control the squad through their objective.

Much like the downloadable game "America's Army"[...] this game is made for the Army (or those interested in it.) Though most likely complicated and difficult, this game's graphics and gameplay are amazing. You can take control of the full chalk, a small squad (alpha or bravo) or just a single soldier. But remember if you do this, don't forget about the other team members. They're important to your mission.

A "HOO-AH" must-buy for those interested in the US Military or war games, but not for those who don't mind difficult missions.

Great!!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 8
Date: September 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

One of the reviews said that the game has not been released yet, which is hasn't but the demo has been put out on the web for download... so...

The demo is extremely fun even though all it contains is the Training and 1 mission. If you are not sure about this game I suggest your download the demo, as with all games.

If there is no demo (DOOM 3 & Battlefield: Vietnam) then wait for your friends to buy it so you can try it out without wasting your money!! haha

Easy game but frustrated installation

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: September 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First of all, this game is lacking of some challenge mission. It seems look like hard to play but after you master the move, the game play is so boring. The installation is frustrated. It required direct X 9.0c. Where is the CD-key? I couldn't find it. I looked around the menue, cd disc, cd case, box, etc and I did not see any cd-key for entering to continue the installation. It had no hint or mention where to find the cd-key. Gee! finally, I found it behind the disc # 3 on the cd case. you have to take the cd disc # 3 out and the cd-key is printed on the cd case. After the installation, my computer crashed twice during the gameplay but it is ok now. I did not know what happened. You have to take the training course before you started the mission because you will never understand what the maneu talking about. Actually, you can put the maneu into the trash can. After you mastering the move. The game is so boring without any challenge. You can easy order your firing team to kill the enemies. Well, this game only worth 4 stars because the pretty graphic, that's it!

Interesting theory exercise... for the first 20 minutes.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: October 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I can see how the game might be a useful tool for the Army in training personnel in tactical maneuvers, but the game becomes tedious and exceptionally limited.

The Pros: The graphics are exceptional. The character and object detail are pretty tops and the environment effects are cool. The way the troops move is credible to the eye and more over, believable as infantrymen. The movement sequences are fun to watch as are the animated interludes involving allied third party characters blowing up entrenched insurgents. The story line is faily plausible in a ficticious ex-soviet "Stan" republic in the grip of "religious extremists," but as ususal the story is politically sanitized to not really offend anyone and the mission is sanctioned by the UN to make sure. The troops cuss and gripe like junior enlistedmen love to do and you get a sense of team cohesion which adds to the realism.

Cons: Ugh, where to start. The environment is extremely limited with usually only one route to your next waypoint/objective. Movement and cover/concealment can only be made/found in certain open, flat areas. There is no crawling under low openings or behind low barriers. There is no traversing rubble mounds or ascending structures unless the game has you do it in an animation sequence. You cannot even open doors on your own.

The AI is also frustrating. Apparenly, only Achmed the 14 year old insurgent with his rusty AK can actually hit anything in this game. So much for marksmanship in the Army. The weapons are worse. Your boys have a hard time killing anyone at 15 yards and you are helples to do anything about it since this is not a first person shooter. Frags apparentlty weigh 75 pounds each since nobody can throw one past 15 feet away and your 40mm HEs can blow up a compact cedan but not hurt a hostile standing directly in front of a direct impact on a concrete wall. Oh, and if someone shoots at you from a second floor balcony, you'll need the rangers to come clear them out for you since grenades can't be thrown above your own dimension and your guys are rarely able to hit them with weapons fire either. Fire support is crude and rarely available. You cannot use any weapons but you team's M-16s, SAW, and handfull of grenades, and they are wildly inaccurate at that. Onward...

The gameplay gets tedious. It becomes an endless repetition of scaning for hostiles, identifying cover, moving/outflanking, engaging or evading, and treating wounded men. I suppose this was what the Army really wanted to emphasize to trainees: use you teams to maximum effect in putting the enemy in a cross-fire with minimal casualties. If you loose two of your eight men, the game is over. To get squad leaders to think in worst-case scenarios everytime, the AI characters act as though they have an ASVAB score of 13 and are legally blind, which often contributes to their getting killed by a lone gunman standing in the open. On the other hand, your enemy Achmed apparenly has 20/10 vision, a Stanford Phd, a Borg forcefield, and an Ak with a match-grade barrel. You can only procede against the defender along a narrow avenue of attack where he is always waiting in ambush, equiped with your with minimal weapons and a cautious method of movemnet. This is at least a good lesson in TACPRO when neither the luxuries of time, backup, comms, or superior/appropriate weapons are at your disposal against a hidden defender: better double your life insurance and write your last letter home.

So, this is not really a combat skills game as much as a leadership game, sorta. It doesn't allow for much creative thinking in tactics or weapons usage and after awhile you just play along to see how the plot unfolds. Hard-core war junkies and post-AIT Army boots might eat up this game simply because of the training and convincing Army "flavor", but your average shooting gamer will be bored after awhile.

Original and beautiful, but could have been much better

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I haven't yet finished this game, but what I have seen is nothing short of stunning. That's too bad, because with a little more work this game could have been one of the greatest ever made.

Don't be fooled into thinking this game is a first person shooter with some aspects of tactical control. It's something much different. In FSW, you are an unseen squad leader, moving your two teams through a bombed-out, rubble-strewn, third-world hellhole liberally populated with AK-47 wielding fanatics. You cannot directly control any particular soldier in your squad. Instead, you give them commands, either as a team or individually. The game is essentially an exercise in observing an area for threats, moving one team into an overwatch position, bounding your other team forwards, observing for threats, etc.

Each team has a team leader with an M-4 carbine, an automatic rifleman with a M-249 SAW light machinegun, a grenadier with an M-16A2 rifle with an M-203 grenade launcher, and a rifleman with another M-4. Each squad also has fragmentation and smoke grenades at their disposal. At some points in the game you will have access to artillery fires and helicopter recon. If more than one of your men goes down the mission is a failure and you must restart from your last save point.

Enemy AI appears at first glance to be pretty poor, but this isn't always the case. Enemies are generally poor shots at longer ranges, but are deadly in close quarters. Usually, the best option is to use one team to engage the enemy from behind cover, while you flank around a building with the other. This will work about 85% of the time, but the enemy will sometimes trick you into moving into an ambush with your flanking team. The enemy will generally try to find cover and return fire on your troops. If they see one of their comrades go down, or are under fire from two different positions, the enemy tends to panic and rout, making them easy pickings. You often don't have to enagage an enemy, and it's rarely worth the effort unless you absolutely have to. It's often possible to bypass an enemy, or force him behind cover with suppressive fire and then break contact. The enemy also seems to have unlimited ammo, which is unfortunate becase they tend to simply blaze away at your troops, even when they're under cover. The enemy will not, however, shoot at your men if they can't see them. If you run into problems, you can usually break contact by throwing a smoke grenade between your men and the enemy. The notion of firing through the smoke never appears to have occurred to them.

Friendly AI is reasonably good. Your soldiers each have their own distinct voices and personality, ruunning the gamut from good-natured but stern leader, to cold-hearted killer, to irritating teenage soldier. Each soldier has subtle differences in his uniform, including using non-issue body armor or uniforms that are inapproprate for a desert/urban setting. Some of your noncommissioned officers even have combat patches (unit patches worn on the right shoulder). The junior elisted have a proclivity for whining and cussing, and the noncommissioned officers spend a great deal of time telling their charges to shut up and clean up their language. If your troops unexpectedly come under fire, it's not unusual for the entire team to start shouting obscenities!

For the greatest army ever fielded, though, your troops are pretty poor shots. Most kills happen only after you've flanked an enemy and he abandons his position. Also, if you're under fire and unsure of what to do, pressing the spacebar will cause your troops to hide behind the nearest available cover. Unfortunately, your troops have a nasty habit of hiding behind couches, wooden crates and other objects that tend to disintegrate quickly when exposed to liberal amounts of 7.62x39mm Soviet ammo. That, or your men will sometimes drop to the prone position in the middle of the steet, which tends to get them killed very quickly.

The graphics are nothing short of stunning, and the game does a great job of making each and every location unique. The level of detail, from advertisements on walls to rusted rebar sticking out of rubble, is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's really easy to lose focus on what you're doing by sightseeing.

You can only save as designated save points, usually immediately after completing an objective. This isn't as irritating as it might sound, though. The game has a replay function, which allows you to jump back into the action at any point. If half of Bavo Team just got cut down by a machine gunner, you can watch the replay, including of where the enemy is, come up with a better plan, rewind the replay to the point immediately before you entered his field of fire and try again. It's a great tool that allows you to observe your mistakes, and learn how to play better.

Unfortunately, the game is somewhat lacking. The enemy AI is entirely scripted. They generally stand around waiting for you to make contact, and are never aggressive. This game could have been much more interesting if you had to constantly watch your six for irregulars stalking you, or if you had to suddenly take fire as a squad of the enemy tries to overrun your own squad. Alas, I have yet to run accross any situation of this nature.

Additionally, there game tends to be fairly linear. While you can bypass many enemies on the way to your objective, there is typically only one way to actually assault the stupid thing. Many enemies are smart enough to position themselves on likely avenues of approach, and there is typically just one way to flank them. Since they're also scripted, the replay value tends to be low. Once you've beaten a mission, there's really no reason go back and try it again.

Movements are also limited. Your troops generally sprint from cover to cover, though they sometimes walk. I often found myself wishing I could have them low-crawl behind cover or kick in doors so that I could take cover in a building. Also, you men all appear to have medical waivers for their knees, because they refuse to climb or jump. I can't count the number of times I fought my way down an alley, only to be stymied by...a five foot wall! In the real world, a soldier would climb over the stupid thing and carry on with his mission. In this game, you have to turn around and find another way.

To conclude, this game is nothing short of revolutionary, but it could have been better. Some games, like Half-Life, define a genre. Others, like Doom, create them. This game is the latter. For all it's beauty and originality, it's still a rough-cut, a work in progress. Hopefully, expansion packs or sequels will address the problems with AI and scripting. But if you're in the mood for something different, then you could do a lot worse than Full Spectrum Warrior.

I'd give this game a 3.5/5 rating, but since Amazon doesn't work that way, I'll round it up to a 4/5. It's really, really good...but not great.

Yeeeeeee-Haaaaaaa <Gulp>

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: October 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well, where to begin......

I`ve been waiting a while for this title to come out. I`d seen it running on the console and was hoping that it would be at least as good.

Graphics
I must say that for the most part the graphics and effects are outstanding. The squad members look good and the terrain is well done. They`ve done a good job with combining an atmospheric setting with appropriate music to give the game a great feel. There are some lovely effects when one of your team gets injured and the action slows down to see blood spilling from an entry wound as he gets blown off his feet. Sometimes you even get a blood splash as if onto the screen to make you feel even more involved. Now and again something strange will happen such as one of your men being hit in the leg by small-arms fire and flipping 30ft (I`m not exaggerating) into the air! Generally though it`s all well done. The many cut scenes are exceptional.

Gameplay
Well thought out and put together. The AI for your squads and the bots are pretty much spot on. It does have a console feel about the game which is a shame in my book as on occasion it can make things look a bit too `arcadey`. The missions do differ a fair bit, although you get the distinct feeling of being led around by the hand. Basically you just follow the waypoint markers with little choice in doing anything else. This can be quite a downer as having more freedom to choose the routes you took etc would add to the replayability aspect of the game.

Audio
As previously mentioned the sound is good. The music is fitting and the sound effects are well done. There`s a fair amount of chatter between your squad members which will let you know how they`re feeling about the present situation. There`s A LOT of swearing so parents be warned.

The Downside
Personally the only things that really made me cringe was the seriously over zealous pro-USA feel to the game. I just couldn`t help but laugh when one of my squad piped up something along the lines of `Who do they think they are messin with... we`re the USA!` This is where all sense of realism leaves the game (Or maybe US troops really talk like that!). There are many entries in the game manual commenting how you`ll be operating with the best trained soldiers in the World and how `US soldiers don`t become rattled under fire` The manual is worth reading purely on the hilarity of such comments.

Overall
A great game. The terrible BS given in the manual and gung-ho comments made in game don`t really spoil things. I`m sure the American audience laps it up and probably believes it, but the rest of the World knows better 8-)

Game SUCKS

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: October 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

DO NOT waste your money on this horrible game. I didn't even finish the training because it was just annoying. This is meant to be a war game but to me it seems more like psychological warfare, the people a THQ want to see how long will you last trying to play this stupid game. This is more like chess, pick and pint where you want your pawns to move. The targetting is a joke, you have to select an area where you want the troops to fire but the person you want to kill is like 15-20 feet away the targetting area is 75feet squared (like shooting darts with your eyes closed.) Is this how "AWSOME" the american army is?? This game is all pro-american, they make it seem like the US army is the best. If this is how they are trained to shoot then I'm not gonna pay my taxes because like this game its a waste of good money.

LAME, Save your money!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: October 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well, I must say that I am extremely disappointed with FSW in many respects. For one, the graphics are not exactly anything to rave about. They are ok, but that's about it. And after all the hype this game received and the advertising it put out, it seems they should have saved some money for the developing. Basically, the actuall gameplay is at a 4 year old level. Click here, move there. THAT'S ALL YOU DO. And I can't stand the cheesey jargon used in the voiceovers. Horrible! I am an infantryman in the US Army, and I can tell you, no one I know talks like this or uses the goofy lingo the throw around in this game. Also,there is NO open ended gameplay, you can only move to certain areas on the map. The enemy AI and the weapons physics are ridiculous. You can have your team fire at an enemy out in the open and he wont move, wont throw a frag, wont call in support etc. If you want a REAL war simulation, buy Operation Flashpoint. It's dated, but still THE best squad/fps/command game ever made. After all the patches and upgrades and addons and it's truly open ended gameplay, OFP will probably be the only game that will permanently stay on my hard drive. FSW, nice try, no cigar.

Pretty pictures... not much else

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: October 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've really tried to give FSW a chance, I really did, but this game is terrible and doesn't live up the hype at all. For all the talk about FSW being an accurate simulation of tactical combat FSW falls way short.

The Good
The graphics. That's about it. And even then there are plenty of problems. For starters you hardly have any control over any options. Want to turn off shadows (notorious frame rate killers), not possible. I have a pretty high-end rig and I encounter lousy frame rates, and tons of stuttering with the audio dialog. Only by turning down the visual features can I get acceptable performance, but then the stunning graphics are no more.

The Bad
Unfortunately for Pandemic, this would encompass the rest of the entire game. Enemy AI is lousy at a distance, and entirely scripted. Restart a level, and they'll be in the same places every time, so forget about replay value.

If FSW is an accurate representation of the Army's capabilities, then we are in real trouble. While the soldiers move and take up basic firing position correctly, their reactions are terrible. When directed to take cover, they'll frequently use some of the worst cover around. Their shooting accuracy is terrible, often spending more time shooting everything around a target rather than the target itself.

FSW is clearly built for a console and not a PC. Load times are terrible, save points (Doesn't every developer by now know that this is a terrible way to treat PC users), limited configuration options, and a gamepad-esq interface.

Don't think for a second the manual will prove useful. The instructions are vague, with poor text descriptions to define actions, with no supporting graphics.

While Pandemic attempted to reflect reality in the game through degrading cover, tactical movements, and liberal use of swearing (Great way to represent out soldiers, they swear more than a trucker in a shouting match with a longshoreman), FSW just falls flat on itself as a tactical shooter.

Save your money and move on to something better.

Six levels?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: October 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game was brief so I'll be brief. It took me one week to beat even with the extra 2 missions for the PC. You don't get much for your money. Full Spectrum is virtually non-replayable. I don't understand how a developer could have had a preexisting game engine and then give you only six levels. The hard work was already done, come on guys. As for the on-line play I haven't been able to get anyone to play with me, so that is null in void. The game play should be approached more like a `Close Combat'. This is not a shooter rather is a real time strategy game. I will never buy another product from this developer unless they release some more missions for download. PS gamers, start recognizing developers. If they have disappointed you in the past then don't buy from them in the future.

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