Dan Chiappini gets ready to rumble with guerrillas in the mist.
While first person shooters as a genre have been around for as long as many of us can recall, they've always been single player with only a liberal sprinkling of multiplayer so as to provide some longevity. With Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising, Novalogic has dumped this tradition completely, ditching the single player campaign and offering a LAN and internet only experience on the battlefield.
Typhoon Rising is based on the Delta Force: Black Hawk Down engine, itself a modified version of the middleware that powered Comanche 4. BHD's biggest shortcoming was its lack of drivable vehicles; however, this is not a problem in Typhoon Rising.
The game boasts 20+ usable vehicles that are great for taking to the sky, sea or hooning around the maps, as many reach multiple square kilometres in size. The armoury spans the gamut of modern warfare, and includes Smith and Wesson .357 revolvers, .50 calibre semi-auto rifles, M134 7.62mm mini-guns and a target designator for calling in mortar strikes on distant enemy positions.
Novalogic has helped newbies by included a 12-mission tutorial to get you up to speed with taking enemy locations, flying choppers and gunning down the bad guys. But if you can't fire a machine gun, or you don't have military bloodlust then this may not be the title for you.
A great engine and solid netcode allows up to 150 simultaneous players on one map, the more the merrier on 'Advance and Secure' maps where you're both holding and attacking on two fronts. A 1km draw distance and terrain specific fog makes for great air and ground combat, while a great range of skins will camouflage you in any surroundings and makes a skilled and concealed sniper a real team asset.
Although the lack of single player cripples it somewhat, the online play is solid and genuinely entertaining. War game lovers and dedicated first person shoot-'em-up fans will dig crawling through the jungle, but we can't help feel long-term playability may be somewhat lacking with no way to hone your skills offline.
Issue: 111 | April, 2010