You
face your enemy across the vast expanse of cyber space. Ahead of you the
field of battle looms, and you feel that familiar adrenaline surge flowing
through your veins. With nervous anticipation you steel yourself for the
forthcoming melee. Palms sweaty on your controls, you silently await the
first shot in this deadly game.
Last minute plans and words of encouragement
come across your commlink. You add your thoughts to the matter, and receive
last minute orders before the battle commences. All of a sudden the quiet
is broken by the distant din of small arms fire mixed with the low rumble
of heavy weapons. The battle is joined, and your quiet reverie is broken
as you leap into the fray.
Sounds
like a narrative from a movie or excerpt from a book? Well its not, its
the latest rage in multiplayer gaming and its catching on quick multiplayer
squad shooters. The days of deathmatch are still going strong and will
until the end of time; everyone feels the call of mano a mano contest.
But were finally seeing the dawn of a new age, something more cerebral
than what weve gotten used to.
No longer are we limited to just fragging
the other guy, of games relying solely on body counts. Now there are
missions
and clear-cut objectives to accomplish. There are three games Ive been
playing a lot that accomplish this very well. These games demonstrate
the strong need for teamwork in this new age of multiplayer gaming:
Rainbow Six,(including
the Eagle Watch Mission Pack) Delta Force and Starsiege:Tribes.
In Rainbow Six you play the role of a shooter on the CT team Rainbow, and
the successful completion of the mission is heavily dependent on good teamwork
and strong communication. Yes, you can try to play Rambo, but odds are youll
end up drowning in a pool of your own blood most of the time.
With the AI accuracy sometimes superhuman it pays to work together
and come at them from different angles of attack. Team tactics means that one causes a diversion
and draws attention, while the other ventilates them from behind.
The
same holds true for head to head matches. With the weapons
and damage modeling set firmly in the real world there are no second chances:
you get shot you 'die'. Nothing is as unpredictable, deadly and at times
downright funny as the human factor.
Add a real person on the other end
of that cyber 'barrel' and it's whole new ball game. Find yourself a steady
group of people to play with on a consistent basis, and after a while you'll
know each other's moves without needing to communicate much. Once at
this level you will not only enjoy playing more, but you will get a small
taste and much greater appreciation of how CT operatives work in real life.
Tribes.
In
Dynamixs newest release, Tribes, you are again forced to cooperate as the
team goals are what determine whether you to win or lose a mission. You can go out
there and get 20-30 or even 40 frags and still lose the game if you dont
accomplish the mission objectives. I love this style of gameplay and have
been yearning for it for far too long. I love working as part of a team
and Tribes forces you to do so if you want to win.
Novalogics Delta Force is the closest thing to playing
paintball Ive experienced in a multiplayer game online. Even the
paintball mods for Quake havent given me the feeling of urgency nor
the adrenaline rush I get from playing Delta Force CTF.
The biggest difference between Tribes, Rainbow Six and
Delta Force is in the freedom of movement that Novalogic has given us with
their Voxelspace engine. Rainbow Six is limited to a certain amount of
space as is Tribes. This is fine because it fits the missions given.
Delta Force.
Youre not going to go tripping across 10 km of terrain to try to backdoor
a tango in a hostage rescue, and with the short time limits of Tribes youll
need to stay close to the action as well. Delta Force gives you the freedom
to go anywhere you want to accomplish your goals, and I think thats one
of the greatest aspects of DF multiplayer.
I LOVE the fact that you can go anywhere
and are given the freedom to come up with different tactics each time.
Thats where the team aspect comes shining through: each player takes a
different role in the team. You have your snipers, your flag runners and
your counter snipers as well as those nuts who just like to run into the
other teams flag station and raise a lot of hell!
Eaglewatch
With
the advent of voice software and the expansion of gameplayers bandwidth
now that cable modems have become more prevalent, team play is becoming
even more of a hot commodity and will continue to increase over time. One great
example of Delta Force CTF that sticks out vividly in my mind was a game I was playing in several weeks ago.
We were playing on a map with 30 flags to capture (I forget the name of
the map but its the one with the radio tower) and it was a brutal
game. Each team had fought hard for every flag and
it literally came down to the wire. Each team had grabbed their last
flag
and it was off to the races as each flag runner was trying to beat the
other one back to their respective flag bay. The Blue team beat us back
and snatched victory from us with our runner just FEET from the flag
pole
and only 13 seconds left on the clock!!
When
we changed maps everyone from both sides took a few seconds breather and
we had an unspoken truce as everyone congratulated each other on such
a great game. After several moments of post game compliments the next battle
was on and again we slugged out several more hard fought games until the
end. It was one of those times when both teams had people who listened
and worked together to accomplish a common goal. I didnt know any of these
people from Adam but I had a feeling of comradeship with my fellow gamers
that left me with a great feeling you just won't get from deathmatch.
Another
great aspect of team play are the friends and rivals you will meet and
make online. I always try to look for players Ive worked with before to
team up with, and at the same time I always try to take a new
role on a team to sort of cross train. Ive mainly enjoyed being a runner,
but lately Ive been trying to stack up a bigger body count by bagging
snipers, every flag runners worst nightmare.
I guess its because I know
the feeling of dread when I hear that fearsome sound of a Barrett light
.50 as it sprays the dirt around me as I near my objective flag. Lets
just say it can elevate one's heart beat a couple of notches to know youre
directly in someones sights, to say the least. I occasionally will take
a trip out with the .50 myself but prefer running to sniping.
Team
play squad shooters are bringing us a new side to gaming that is long overdue,
and one that adds a great deal of enjoyment to me personally. Ive never
been a big deathmatch fan and prefer teamwork to single person achievements.
Its nice to rack up the kills but its more enjoyable for me to save my
buddys neck when hes in a jam and have him return the favor to me when
my butt is in a sling.
As you may guess, Ive made a lot of friends online and plan
on continuing to do so well into the future. If you havent played
Delta Force CTF yet or Rainbow Six or even TRIBES I urge you to go out
and pick one up. Youll have a ton of fun and be introduced
to a really great community of players and you will NOT regret it.
The
biggest hurdle with team style play is communication.
You probably wont know anyone at first when playing a pickup game, but
as you go along and play youll start seeing the same names over and over
again and will make new friends and acquaintances. After playing
with and against these players youll start learning their styles of play,
and by effectively using your chat feature in the game youll be able to
coordinate your movements and attacks with your teammates.
What
would I love to see in the future of multiplayer gaming? Dynamic campaigns
where each side's actions affect the outcome of the whole situation in a
complete, interactive world. I think we just may see things like that popping
up and it will greatly increase the replay value of any game whose developer
can get this idea right.
Dynamix already has introduced us to some of the
concepts that can be used with their command and control setup within
TRIBES. Novalogic has shown us the direction with their voice commands
in Delta Force. But this can only increase and grow by continued input
from gamers. Believe it or not, these companies do listen. So if you
have an idea or two send 'em to your favorite developer, or send them
to one of us here at Combatsim.Com and well make sure they get into
the right hands.
Until then keep your heads low, ammo fresh, your sh*t wired and check six!
