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Rating : 7.8 / 10 Developer : NovaLogic Availability : PC |
Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising is one of those games that get overshadowed by another; and in this case, Battlefield 2.
But with that aside, what is JO:TR about?
JO is purely online and over LAN. The only single player missions you have are for training purposes and to introduce you to the game mechanics.
In your profile, you change you name as you like, your character appearance (from a range of different military forces), and default weapon load out and class you wish to enter with every battle.
Once you're all set, you log in, join a game, and create havoc.
JO brings an interesting aspect to the system; weight.
The heavier you are, the slower you run.
Each class has their own set of weapons suited for them; Engineer, Gunner, Medic, Rifleman, and Sniper.
You choose from of your set loud out what type of gun available you wish to bring in, any explosives, and how many of each; ammo count.
As you play through the battle and your ammunition deplets, your weight lowers and you run a little faster.
Only in the extreme of weight difference will you see the significant change in speed.
with this in mind, you can go in fully loaded, or with just a combat knife.
Once in game, it is your simple 'run n gun' arcade shooter revolving around realistic concepts.
There's no running speed; you just run and shoot, but your accuracy is greatly deminished. If you use your ironsights as you run, your accuracy increases and you run a little slower.
The other positions are crouch and prone where accuracy improves in each stance and scoping adds more, speed difference while non-scoped and scoped is very minor compared to running.
The great part of it all is when you're running and you shot at, going into the prone position doesn't just drop you, but you leap forward. This avoids the shots and if there's cover arond you, you're safe. But you have to run for a little, not just a step or two, or you'll just drop.
Of course, what is a battle without vehicles and back up. Although the game is limited in vehicles, a couple land, sea, and air, it makes up for its simplicity. Anyone can be a first grade pilot, caption, or driver; and there are three variable speeds: low, medium, and fast.
Land vehicles aren't solid in terms of driving around though; they feel buggy to say the least, but they work.
JO doesn't provide you with the realism of low gear high gear, but something simple and fast to give your fallen comrades a method of transportation from base to field, and fields are infinitely big.
Although the grounds can be designed in a specific area, it doesn't prevent anyone from going flying through the infinite horizons.
Add a dedicated mapping team and you can make a world out of this.
with the ability to create large maps like this, you will need a lot of players. JO supports up to 150 players per server, given you have that server power. A massive 75 v 75 is something you rarely see these days. If your server is up to speed too, there is almost no lag or problems hosting this amount of players.
Unfortunately, Novalogic has toned down their 150 player servers to 100 due to some issues they ran into.
But this won't stop anyone else who wants to put up these games, and 50 v 50 is pretty big already.
Through the chaos of battle, it's important to keep tag of your squads.
JO provides volunteer commanders to form squads and use the map to plot way points for teams they can form, objectives, and possible enemy positions.
For quick communication, players are given a fair range of emotes to report status, call for back up, medic, report enemies, request vehicle transport, or assit vehicle transport.
All of this comes down together nicely as emotes are shown with small icons on the map and mini map providing easy coordination between fire teams.
Communication isn't the only important thing during war, but sound also. If you have a surround sound system, you will be blessed with 360 degrees of sound on a flat horizon plain. The difference in affect of above and below you is very minor.
Transition between your directions of sound is smooth. You can figure the exact direction something is coming from, however, within all the chaos, could you really tell where anything is coming from when you're showered with bullets above your head?
Swimming in water will also muffle your sound and soften everything.
Other than accurate sound, explosions and crackling fire sound great. Turn up the bass and it thunders. Squeeling mortor fires from the air is hell.
The majority of gunshots however sound slightly like nail guns with some amp in them.
Fast gameplay, strong features, and massive wars is only the outside appearance of the game. When you look into the classes, you see something different.
Medics revive and heal comrades by throwing a med pack on them; veyr simple. If you die from a head shot, stabbing, or drowning, you can't be revived. Every other method of death is resurrectable within a certain amount of time. Medics play a very vital role when it comes to keeping the team alive and pushing forward. Although their arsenal or weapons is very small and basic, they are fast and good for getting from cover to cover.
Snipers also have very limited equipment, but their main job is to sit back and knock off any distance foes. Different rifles have different effective range and their weight, ammo count, and firing speed all factor in to how you want to play.
Sitting back with the snipers are the Engineers. They don't necessarily serve to protect the Sniper from being picked out by foes nearby, but hell they are useful. They carry the heavest and most frightening weapons.
Take down helicopters, send mortar rounds, detonate areas, anything that makes fireworks.
When shooting mortars, the closer the target, the more accurate, however, with the Sniper scouting targets and pointing them out while taking out enemy foes, mortars at longer ranges can have quite the deadly aim.
Gunners and Riflemen are generally the grunt of the team as they go in guns blazing with fire power like no other. Gunners hail bullets across to cover for the Riflemen while they go deep in and take down any obstacles.
When a team works well together, they are invincible. Points is awarded for working together.
The person behind the wheel gains points for kills the passengers make, thanks for smooth driving, and helping take down certain enemies and foes award each member.
Putting these classes to the test in four game modes; Advance and Secure, Co-op, Team Deathmatch, and Team King of the Hill, each one plays to their own style.
Co-op is when you go against the AI with other online players and although this can be quite a fun mode with custom made maps, the AI isn't very intelligent. They can be accurate or blind depending on map settings, but they don't run for cover, they run to you.
Team Deathmatch is an all out battle between the two sides and whoever has more points in the end wins.
Team King of the Hill is when you try and get to the designated point on the battle field where you have to camp in for a duration of time to win. If no teams reach that goal, the side with the long duration wins.
Advance and Secure is when you capture bunkers and you try to capture every bunker to overwhelm your opposition.
AS is a very concentrated mode because you are either defending your bunker, or you are attacking one.
Graphically, JO isn't the best out there, nor the worst. With detailed textures, high polygon counts, and various effects, what really brings it down is how plain it all is. Although you can have a luscious forest or colourful villas, the end result still doesn't have that gleam to draw attention.
The reason for this could be the fact that having 150 players on a server, whilst having far view distances, something needed to be compromised, and without wanting to ruin the textures or polygons, overall atmosphere of environments were left with an empty feel, the cost for being able to run on as many PCs as possible.
Overall, if you're looking for quick action whilst great all round team work, even when there are the uncorporative bunch, Joint Operations Typhoon Rising can give your bucks worth.
It also has an expansion pack, Joint Operations: Escalation, which adds a few new vehicles, weapons, and environments, you can really have a blast with this series.
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