Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising Updated Hands-On Impressions - 150-Player Beta
The action gets hot and heavy as we try out NovaLogic's Battlefield killer.
First-person shooters have always been popular multiplayer games, but it wasn't until the arrival of Battlefield 1942 that gamers wholeheartedly embraced the idea of a large-scale, multiplayer shooter with dozens of players on each team. Battlefield 1942 was so successful that Electronic Arts has released Battlefield Vietnam and is working on two more Battlefield games. But NovaLogic, which has long developed and published its own line of military-themed first-person shooters, is taking dead aim at the Battlefield franchise with Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising. We had the opportunity recently to try out Joint Operations for a report from the front lines.
Joint Operations takes place in a near-future conflict in Indonesia. The United States has dispatched its Joint Operations special forces to battle a well-armed rebel insurgency in the jungles of that strategically important and populous nation. In the game, you can play either as the Joint Operations troops or as the rebels, and each has its own unique set of weapons and vehicles at its disposal.
You can pick from a number of classes, including rifleman, engineer, sniper, and medic. Each class comes with its own kit that you can modify by accessing any of the weapon points on the map; there's usually one in each bunker. Since Joint Operations is a modern-day game, you have access to all the latest weapons and equipment, including the M16 and AK-47 assault rifles, the AT-4 rocket launcher, the Dragunov sniper rifle, and an assortment of grenade types, such as flashbangs and fragmentation. There's even a target designator that you can use to mark a target for a fellow teammate equipped with a mortar. Not everyone will look the same, either. You can choose from a large number of skins or appearances. For example, the Joint Ops team can look like US Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Air Force Special Ops, and more. There's also the ability to customize your appearance by choosing different kinds of headgear and such.
However, the big difference between Joint Operations and Battlefield 1942 is that while most Battlefield game servers max out at 32 or 64 players, Joint Operations can support upwards of 150 players per server (and beta sessions have reportedly featured more than 200 players at once). It's a huge difference in scale, and even though the test game we played had only around 85 players, it still felt larger than most Battlefield games that we've participated in.
We played several matches of the "advance and secure" game mode, in which the goal for both teams is to seize a number of control points located on the map, much like in Battlefield 1942. To seize a control point, you have to basically eliminate all opposition near it and camp, or sit, on top of the control point until it switches sides. Fortunately, your interface will indicate the control points in contention, and it will even give the number of players from each team that are at each control point, so you can quickly decide where you're needed most.
Thanks to the lethal nature of modern weapons, the action is very fast paced and brutal, and you'll die quite a bit. Thankfully, you have a couple of options when you die. You can instantly respawn at your main base by hitting the space bar, or you can choose to wait up to 20 or 30 seconds to spawn at one of your team's control points. If you spawn at your base, you'll have to travel back up to the front lines, though you can usually catch a ride in a vehicle. In addition, medic players can revive their fallen comrades.
Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising Quick Links
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- NovaLogic
- Modern Tactical Shooter
- Release: Jun 15, 2004 »
- ESRB: Teen
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