Global Operations Updated Preview

Barking Dog Studios and Electronic Arts are hoping that Global Operations, their long-awaited first-person shooter, will have the right mix of action and realism to dethrone Counter-Strike, the longtime champ of online team-based first-person shooting. We've spent countless hours playing the first beta release of Global Operations and have a hands-on report of what the experience has been like so far.

Upon selecting a team, you'll spawn in a reinsertion zone such as this one.

Currently, there are only a handful of servers available to play on, but once you have selected a server and have been connected, you have to make two choices. The first choice is to decide which of the two teams to play on---you can select between a law enforcement team and criminal force team. Each map has a different branch of law enforcement and criminal force; for instance, when playing on the Mexico map, you can choose to be a part of the Mexican army or the local drug cartel. Even though the team may have a different name, each team on every map is the same aside from appearance. The next choice is to decide which of the seven character classes (only six actually participate in combat) you'd like to play as. The first six positions on the team are recon officer, heavy gunner, sniper, commando, medic, and demolitions expert. Each character class has specific abilities, weapons, and items. For instance, the recon officer comes equipped with a global positioning system that shows where teammates and nearby enemy forces are. The demolition expert has the ability to purchase a range of explosives--including C4--which he can use to blow open passages and doors that open up alternate access routes. Using the special abilities of these character classes correctly and in concert with the other abilities of your teammates greatly increases your team's chance for success in completing objectives.

This MP5A5 has been upgraded with a tactical foregrip and a flashlight.

Once you've chosen a team and character class, all that's left to do is buy your weapons and items and begin play. The weapons and items, as well as the limit of each that you can carry, are once again dependent on the character class you choose. For instance, the commando can carry up to three weapons--primary, secondary, and a sidearm. The recon and medical officers can carry only a primary and sidearm. In addition to buying weapons, you can buy weapon upgrades such as scopes, larger magazines, and suppressors.

The mechanics of the gameplay in Global Operations are naturally very similar to that of Counter-Strike. However, there are some very subtle and key differences between the two games. The first and most obvious is that although the game is team based, it does allow players who have been killed to respawn during the same mission. If a player's health percentage falls to zero, he falls to the ground, where he can either alert a medic of his condition and hope he arrives before he dies or simply choose his fate and head back to the weapon-select screen and wait to be respawned. This system is very similar to the one in Return to Castle Wolfenstein in that it has a respawning time cycle. Sometimes you'll catch the cycle near its end and get right back in, and other times you'll have to wait up to 25 seconds. In any case, no matter how similar Global Operations may seem to Counter-Strike in appearance or setup, its respawning system does put you in play for greater lengths of time, no matter how good you are at CS. Global Operations' respawning system and the fact that all primary weapons that hit the ground stay there unless picked up by other players remove the consequence of dying in the game, since you can usually respawn and go and pick up your gun where you dropped it when you died. Dying in general at this time in Global Operations is harder to do than in Counter-Strike. The damage system is much more forgiving: A single round to the chest from a submachine gun at close range while you're wearing light armor takes off just a few percentage points from your health. Headshots from a submachine gun also are weaker and require multiple shots to kill. Pistols other than the Desert Eagle and 44. mag also require a great number of well-placed shots to cause serious damage.