Tactical Intervention Review

How often do you play a new first person shooter and not weep in response to boring and used up mechanics? Tactical Intervention, designed by Counter Strike co-creator Minh Le, makes what appears to be an effort to liven up the world of tactical shooters. It seems to target those fans of the series. While it isn't a direct part of the CS series, it does take much of its influence from those games, which isn't surprising with Le designing it. Tactical Intervention is pretty standard as a first person shooter. At least it doesn't appear to be a fruit stand. Gameplay Tactical Intervention impresses at first with a few interesting and under-used mechanics. To start with, you can lean around cover or even blind fire over it. Sadly, this is an idea the first person shooter world seems to largely ignore despite its effectiveness. Unless you are one of many gamers that prefer to get directly shot at instead of duck away from certain death, the controls in cover are very simple and easy to manage. You might also like to take down terrorists from a window whilst dangling from a rappel rope. It's a pretty cool way to get the job done in an unscripted multiplayer game, even if it is an option offered in a limited capacity. These are quite interesting mechanics for the shooter genre, and they aren't at the end of the list. Available for purchase are different pets that can track down the enemy in a match. If you're plagued by an unfortunate scarcity of cover, you may grab a hostage to use as a bullet catcher. Apart from these, the game is a standard first person shooter. Spawn, kill, die, and then repeat ad nauseum. Getting killed over and over certainly makes me nauseous. This game is exclusively multiplayer with an unfortunate lack of variety. The online experience is confined to deathmatches and terrorism scenarios,though the missions have interesting features themselves. One particular map allows you to drive a car across a highway or fly helicopters overhead and cover your team on the ground. Most of the maps are much more straightforward however. Even with a great internet connection, and the lowest graphics settings, some more than adequate PCs just can't get a solid frame rate. At times the frame rate hovers around 30 FPS, and then for the next ten games it'll run an infuriating 5-15 FPS. The fact that my PC runs more demanding games with less difficulty makes me think Tactical Intervention just doesn't play well with certain systems. Presentation Visually speaking, Tactical Intervention reminds me of Counter Strike. TI isn't particularly impressive in its graphics, but the visuals are at least where they should be. The interface is presented in a clean, manageable fashion. There is no noticeable use of music during the game (not that the sound of gun shots leaves much silence). Generally speaking, Tactical Intervention does a decent enough job of being…

Tactical Intervention

Gameplay - 6

Presentation - 5

Lifespan - 3

Freeness - 3

4.3

To sum it all up, Tactical Intervention is, in my opinion, an example of what could have been an impressive game that just got rushed into the pit of free to pay mediocrity.

User Rating: 2.85 ( 3 votes)

How often do you play a new first person shooter and not weep in response to boring and used up mechanics? Tactical Intervention, designed by Counter Strike co-creator Minh Le, makes what appears to be an effort to liven up the world of tactical shooters.

It seems to target those fans of the series. While it isn’t a direct part of the CS series, it does take much of its influence from those games, which isn’t surprising with Le designing it. Tactical Intervention is pretty standard as a first person shooter.

At least it doesn’t appear to be a fruit stand.

Gameplay

Tactical Intervention impresses at first with a few interesting and under-used mechanics. To start with, you can lean around cover or even blind fire over it. Sadly, this is an idea the first person shooter world seems to largely ignore despite its effectiveness. Unless you are one of many gamers that prefer to get directly shot at instead of duck away from certain death, the controls in cover are very simple and easy to manage.

You might also like to take down terrorists from a window whilst dangling from a rappel rope. It’s a pretty cool way to get the job done in an unscripted multiplayer game, even if it is an option offered in a limited capacity. These are quite interesting mechanics for the shooter genre, and they aren’t at the end of the list. Available for purchase are different pets that can track down the enemy in a match. If you’re plagued by an unfortunate scarcity of cover, you may grab a hostage to use as a bullet catcher. Apart from these, the game is a standard first person shooter. Spawn, kill, die, and then repeat ad nauseum.

Getting killed over and over certainly makes me nauseous.

This game is exclusively multiplayer with an unfortunate lack of variety. The online experience is confined to deathmatches and terrorism scenarios,though the missions have interesting features themselves. One particular map allows you to drive a car across a highway or fly helicopters overhead and cover your team on the ground. Most of the maps are much more straightforward however.

Even with a great internet connection, and the lowest graphics settings, some more than adequate PCs just can’t get a solid frame rate. At times the frame rate hovers around 30 FPS, and then for the next ten games it’ll run an infuriating 5-15 FPS. The fact that my PC runs more demanding games with less difficulty makes me think Tactical Intervention just doesn’t play well with certain systems.

Presentation

Visually speaking, Tactical Intervention reminds me of Counter Strike. TI isn’t particularly impressive in its graphics, but the visuals are at least where they should be. The interface is presented in a clean, manageable fashion. There is no noticeable use of music during the game (not that the sound of gun shots leaves much silence).

Generally speaking, Tactical Intervention does a decent enough job of being visually appealing even if it is somewhat outdated. However, the lack of meaningful variety and lasting enjoyment can’t be nullified by a lag inducing pool of blood. While I praise the use of engaging mechanics, the overall value is dragged down by catering to a specific attention span. TI just isn’t made for those of us that value depth and variety. Trust me, the highway mission is different from the standard deathmatch levels, but after playing it on a constant loop it just doesn’t retain any hint of charm.

Lifespan

Without a story the game is left with only the multiplayer game mode. As previously stated, there are only a few maps to play and not a lot of variation. This game is very repetitive and gets boring rather quickly. The style leaves little to no upward mobility, and getting killed over and over by players with better equipment when I’m stuck with the same weapons does nothing to keep me engaged. Without any kind of variability in the maps or even in general, Tactical Intervention just can’t enjoy the long life of more well developed titles.

Freeness

TI is free to download on Steam and free to play online. In order to get anything new, the player has to exchange either real money or in game currency. The game uses GP, and in game point system, to reward play and allow the purchase of new weapons. Unfortunately, the GP costs necessitate more grinding than I am willing to do for a single item, and most cosmetic items can only be bought with money. In the most simple terms, TI just doesn’t do free the right way.

Since when does free to play mean you have to pay to make the game good?

To sum it all up, Tactical Intervention is, in my opinion, an example of what could have been an impressive game that just got rushed into the pit of free to pay mediocrity. While there are glimmers of thoughtful design, they are tragically squashed under the weight of the rest of this game’s flaws. If you are looking for a game to spend a few days getting tired of, TI is free to download on Steam.