Hands-onGlobal Operations

Global Operations follows in the footsteps of online action gaming's most popular Half-Life mod: Counter-Strike. In fact, a number of the developers at Barking Dog Studios worked on the beta 5 version of Counter-Strike, adding elements like the bystander models and contextual help messages that are still in the game. While the game has been in development for only eight months, its first public showing at E3 was quite impressive.

Realism is what draws many players to games of this sort of game and the developers are working hard to get all the details right for Global Operations. There are lots of real-world weapons to try out, and they're all customizable in the pre-game menu. Depending on the weapon, it's possible to add a scope, laser sight, silencer, under-the-barrel shotguns, or even grenade launchers. The team took all the weapons out to the shooting range to record sounds and filmed the exact reload process for each gun to get the animations just right. The game includes a detailed ballistics model to determine damage and punching power. It's possible to shoot through materials like wood, sheet metal, or bricks, and the game determines how much this slows bullets down depending on the gun, type of ammo, and the thickness and material of the target.

Another thing that sets the game apart is the use of player specialties. Before jumping into a game, each player selects one of seven specialties: commando, recon, sniper, heavy weapons, demolitions, medic, and intelligence officer. Each has its own special abilities and preferred weapons. The recon class, for example, can carry fewer weapons, but is faster and better at spotting enemies. Some specialties come with default equipment, such as LAW rocket for the heavy weapons specialist. The intelligence officer can see through a camera that each player model has on its shoulder and directs the action on an overhead map. As you might expect from the game's title, Global Operations includes 16 maps from around the world and each has its own player models, with regional uniforms. This jumps the number of total models in the game up to around 190.

The game uses version 2.5 of the LithTech engine, and seems to have environments about as detailed as those in Monolith's flagship LithTech-based game, No One Lives Forever. Barking Dog has made a number of its own modifications to the engine, adding support for effects like radiosity and improving the networking. The game also has a slick interface that lets you drag the in-game display's status bars around as you like. Since players must choose their specialties and inventories before each match, there'll be a convenient system for creating and selecting favorites. As in Counter-Strike, players are rewarded with money after each round for achieving objectives and all items and upgrades must be purchased. One difference in Global Operations is that players wear body armor by default, selecting from light, medium, and heavy variants. Although most of the action is going to be online, it's important to note that Global Operations does have a singleplayer component that lets the player compete against bots.

While it hasn't been in development for very long, the game already looks quite good. It's said to be about half complete and is slated for release late this year. Crave and Electronic Arts have signed a co-publishing agreement for the game, so it should see good distribution support at its release.