Conflict: Desert Storm II
Conflict Desert Storm II takes place during the first war in Iraq in 1991. You’re presented with 10 missions that range from protecting Black Hawk helicopters to escorting troops through a hostile city. At the start of the game you pick whether to play as the SAS or Delta Force. (The only real difference between the two choices is whether your team members have English accents.) Whichever side you select, you assume leadership of a four-man fireteam consisting of a rifleman, sniper, support gunner, and scout.
Your loadout reads like the standard checklist in any military shooter, complete with M16s, SAWs, and sniper rifle. You’ll also get access to RPGs, grenades, and any weapons your enemies drop.
As I said before, CDS II has immediately noticeable flaws. The biggest one is its interface. Games like Ghost Recon got us used to intuitive point-and-click interfaces for commanding our troops, but CDS II forces you to memorize a series of keystrokes that all require you to first hold down the Alt key. This system is clunky to say the least, and it’s a constant hassle to get your boys to do what you need them to do in the middle of a firefight.
Also, the music sounds like it’s straight out of a Chuck Norris flick. The sound effects are bland, the voice actors sound like junior-high-school kids playing war, and none of the weapons seems to have any punch. Yet more grief: your saves are limited, and if just one of your soldiers dies, you fail the current mission.
We normally ban phrases like “If you can work past these flaws…”, but CDS II has a genuinely rewarding payoff to the struggles. The missions are very intense, and just moving through hostile city streets delivers some pitched gun battles where getting from one point to another is a tactical challenge in itself.
One touch that really ratchets up the tension is how death is handled. If one of your boys takes too many hits, he becomes incapacitated but doesn’t die. Instead, he has a second life bar that slowly goes down. You can bring him back from the brink with a medpack, but if you don’t get to him in time, he’ll bleed to death. Some of the most sweat-inducing moments come from running through blistering enemy fire to get to your buddy and heal him. Also, the ability to drive vehicles and call in air strikes is just pretty damn cool.
It’s a low-polish game, but I ended up enjoying Conflict Desert Storm II. If you love games depicting modern urban combat, it’s worth your time and money.