games website "Special Operations: The Line of Life" Detailed review: "Apocalypse Now" under the dust

I. Personal mood

The first work in the special action series, Ranger Vanguard, was born in 1998, and has emphasized tactical shooting elements and high degree of realism. In 2003, Take-Two purchased the development rights to the series. Development plans for this new title were announced in 2009.

Although the quality and influence of the previous titles are very mediocre, 2K has high hopes for this work, and IGN also gave it a good score of 8. However, in the face of the TPS masterpiece "Ghost Action 4: Future Warriors" and the earlier "Max Payne 3", which was just released a few days ago, compared to what is a dark horse work or a moderate work, let's see what it is.

(Because the game is set in post-apocalyptic Dubai, it was banned from release in the United Arab Emirates.)

Ii. Introduction to the game

An upturned Stars and Stripes flag flies over Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, as one of the most luxurious cities on Earth suffers a disaster more devastating than the real economic crisis: a sudden sandstorm hits here, and the entire city is reduced to crumbling ruins in the desert.

Our protagonist, Delta Force Captain Martin Walker, travels to Dubai with two of his teammates to launch a search operation. Because in this city, which has been reduced to ruins by dust storms and riots, although army troops have been sent to investigate in order to search for the missing army colonel, but for unknown reasons, rebellion has broken out and lost contact.

Just then a trembling male voice floated through the clouds: "Do you still insist on 'rescuing' me, Captain? You think I'm crazy and I've become a monster, so come and see for yourself, we're waiting for you!" If the above eerie atmosphere has you hooked, and you are a fan of TPS bunker shooting games, please don't miss this game.

Three. Game screen

The game uses the Unreal 3 engine, and the overall game screen is not as good as some graphics card killers, but generally speaking, it is good and normal. The rare thing is that the game optimization is quite excellent, it is said that the set can run...... "without much frame"

Before entering the game, the UI is simple and intuitive and even a little simple, without too many bells and whistles. However, there is no anti-aliasing option in the game Settings, if you do not strongly open the anti-aliasing in the graphics card Settings, the game will see a lot of this "full screen gameplay" phenomenon.

After selecting the difficulty, it will transition directly from the UI interface to the game, making people's eyes shine.

Unreal Engine 3 is characterized by its extremely detailed character and item models, excellent light shading effects, and outstanding material details. Since a large number of scenes in the game itself are the sand sea landscape filled with yellow sand, the sand effect is depicted in detail, so it well covers the Unreal Engine 3's criticized "shit yellow" style......

The dust effect in the game is quite good, whether it is the dust flying in the environment or the dust floating after the explosion gives people a feeling of being in the scene. The pure dust effect is somewhat similar to the Uncharted 3 style.

The light effect is great, whether it is a sunny noon, or a fading evening, the surrounding buildings and the faint halo of the protagonist are amazing! Thanks to Unreal Engine 3, a large number of dynamic light sources and fuzzy shadow effects are used to accurately cast dynamic, soft pixel light and shadow effects on all objects in the scene.

At the same time, it uses a pre-calculated shadow mask with extremely high quality and performance, so that the interaction phenomenon of static light sources can be processed offline, while retaining the full dynamic highlight and reflection effect. Excellent material models make the game from large to collapsing luxury hotels to small bunkers placed randomly on the side of the road very realistic.

Character models, facial expressions and gun models, surface maps are all effects out of the group!

Finally, there is the powerful physical environment interaction effect, every time the wind is howling, stirring up the clouds of smoke, players and enemies will be severely affected by the field of view; You can also shoot awning cables that deposit a lot of sand, bury a bunch of enemies underneath, and so on.

The game uses a very advanced physics engine, which can pay the object to a certain quality, shape and other characteristics, so as to obtain a very realistic mechanical dynamic effect and complex collision and other object interaction.

Of course, there are flaws in many details, the dust flying particles are mediocre, the explosion effect is very bad, the vistas are mapped, and there is a certain amount of mapping delay as in Fury.

In general, I think Unreal Engine 3 is not suitable for making particularly large scene games, such as "Gears of War" such as small-scale street battles or fierce conflicts inside the building can undoubtedly better play the characteristics of Unreal Engine 3.

The character model is very good, but the physical movement track of the character is very awkward, looking at the protagonist's twisting running action is very funny. Some desert terrain hero a line of people after walking on the ground can not leave footprints, do three people practice will float on the water? There are no bullet holes after the bullet hits the object, and the protagonist dares to slide down the rope wearing only a normal glove.

In the second level, when the wind was blowing, our protagonist grabbed the cover with one hand and was about to be blown flying, and the result was that two enemies stood in the wind and calmly shot at you...... Therefore, it can be confirmed that they are all martial arts masters with extraordinary skills, but the enemy is paid less and needs to get out in advance.

Four. Game music

When I entered the main screen, the background music (a rock version of the American National anthem) surprised me, and the rest of the music was mostly in this rock style.

The music in the cut scene CG is very powerful, much like a good movie. The sound effects are also excellent, the sound of the characters stepping on the desert, the cough of the enemies, and the moans are very realistic.

However, the gunfire is relatively weak, and it is so several kinds of sound, there is no strength and deterrent, and the shooting feel and feedback are not high. However, the performance of ambient sound is quite high level, such as the echo of gunfire in the open space, the basement, and the bullet hit the floor, the car, the sand, can be clearly heard by the player.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that the voice of the hero of the game is Nolan North, a boy who I don't know and when I say "Uncharted" Drake, you will understand. Nolan North is a superb falsetto artist who has been described as one of the most iconic game voice actors of recent years.

Five. Game operation

Game operation is still a common set of TPS, such as over the shoulder view, cover shooting, blind shooting, sliding shovel, one-hand support jump over cover, parabolic trajectory throwing grenade, low posture sprint when the shaking camera, quick transfer between two shelters and other iconic design can be clearly seen in the "Gears of War" style, the game has a very mature and complete performance of the cover system.

In addition to the above, there are close-range action attacks, you can beat the enemy or close to the head, the head has a slow motion effect, is one of the features of this game.

At the same time with the "scene destruction" characteristics, more emphasis on the three-dimensional space of the battlefield on the impact of bunker shooting, so the protagonist a line of three people will face the enemy occupying the commanding heights of the fire suppression, so hiding behind the bunker is not absolutely safe, ten thousand years crouching party can only be a dead end.

And after the light source is destroyed, the lighting effect of the entire scene also changes dynamically. The overall pace of the game is fast, and the optimization is great, the game frame number is quite sufficient, and the play is a big call.

Game style and system

There are two teammates in the game (a melee and a sniper), so it also has a team command system, not only can adjust the basic strategy of the team (mark to lock the enemy), but also can give specific orders to two teammates in the team, including encirclement, hold, retreat and fire cover, players can also set waypoints on the scene map. Let comrades achieve more accurate attack positioning.

Teammates get hurt, and the protagonist can heal them.

The game also has a unique moral value system, many times you can get a lot of easy ways to kill enemies, but this will also endanger the life of the survivor, how to choose is up to the player. For example, there is a large piece of glass on top of the enemy's head, which is piled up with thick sand.

Breaking the glass would bury the enemy in the sand pouring down from above, but it would also kill civilians held by the rebels. While the game doesn't offer material rewards for rescuing civilians and penalties for killing them, as many RPGS do, the most you can hear is complaints from two teammates.

However, in the end, the player who chooses evil deeds will be "liquidated" through the branch ending of the game.

Vii. Conclusion

Apocalypse Now, the 1979 Cannes Palme d 'Or award-winning Vietnam War film starring Marlon Brando, is the main tribute to Ops: Line, and Heart of Darkness is also the inspiration for the game, or rather, the common inspiration for Apocalypse Now and Ops: Line.

Of course, while these two works share similar stories, their themes are very different. "It's a dark story," concludes lead designer Cory. "We didn't want to define the characters by the good/evil dichotomy." We also hope that the game will entertain players and give them a spiritual shock.

What is the essence of a soldier? What do soldiers fight for? What is the deformed result of war on human nature? We recommend you to try the game to experience a different kind of battlefield romance!

Text and text: games website Literature Group -- Egg-roll Cat Literature Guide: Half-Demon Lich