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Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad
by Jolex Del Pilar
Monday, January 26 2004
Back to Baghdad is one of the best (few) shooters on Nintendo's console.
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Title:
Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad
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Platform:
Gamecube
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Publisher:
Gotham Games |
Developer:
Pivotal Games Limited |
#
of Players: 1 - 4 |
Genre:
Action
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Origin:
United States
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Expected
Release:
January 2004 |
Grapevine:
With the exception of Metroid, Back to Baghdad is perhaps the best shooter available for the shooter starved console. |
The lack of shooters on the Gamecube can be attributed to a great many reasons including the companies' kiddy focus, or even the general lack of 3rd party developers for the console. Whatever the reason, Gamecube owners are fortunate that Gotham Games decided to bring Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad to the Gamecube. With the exception of Metroid, Back to Baghdad is perhaps the best shooter available for the shooter starved console.
The Conflict Desert Storm series can best be described as an interesting mix of accurate, realistic, shooter gameplay, similar to Ghost Recon from Red Storm, and Halo, a much more action oriented shooter from Bungie. What this gives birth to is a shooter that features squad based gameplay that although is challenging, also gives room for error unlike the "one shot, one kill" scenarios often played out in Ghost Recon.
The story of Conflict Desert Storm II takes us all the way back to 1991. The first Iraqi War has just concluded and the day has been saved by Coalition forces. However, many POWs were never found, and that's where you come in, as either a member of the elite counter-terrorist group known as Delta Force, or a member of the British SAS. The game takes place over 10 or so missions which have your team rescuing fellow soldiers, liberating POWs, and eliminating weapons sites. The missions are fairly varied and don't fall into monotony. You can also modify the difficulty of a level, but due to some excellent A.I, the game remains a challenge even on the easiest setting. It can't be emphasized enough how much of an improvement the A.I is in the sequel than the original Conflict Desert Storm. While I was able to breeze through the original game pretty rapidly, CDS II requires a slower, more calculated, playing style if you want to get past the first two levels alive.
Playing this game with the Gamecube controller is a bit of a learning experience at first. The little yellow analog featured on the Gamecube controller seems to be the weakest implementation of an analog stick of the 3 major consoles. The fact that this loose, and tiny, analog handles movement is sometimes a problem, though you can get used to it.
The biggest strength of CFS II though remains its excellent multiplayer mode. Though the Gamecube version is missing the online option that Xbox players enjoy, it does feature the 4-player split screen that PS2 gamers are missing. The ability to coordinate with friends makes this game an excellent multiplayer, squad based game, on par with Ghost Recon and in some ways, a better experience because the game is a lot more forgiving than Ghost Recon is.
The only weak point in CDS II's proverbial armor is the visual experience. Though the graphics aren't exactly horrible, they are clearly a step below the current lot of shooters like Halo, Ghost Recon, and Unreal. The Gamecube version is pretty much on par with the Xbox version of the game, which is good, but the low-res textures are still visible even on this hardware.
However, as you may know, a game's visual experience is only one part of a whole, and as a whole, CDS II: Back to Baghdad is an excellent game that is great as a solo experience but absolutely excels as a multiplayer experience. With the addition of Xbox Live and possible content download, the game jumps up another notch. As a sum of its parts, Conflict Desert Storm II is a great game that would be a great addition to anyone's gaming library, especially anyone interested in solid squad based action.
--- Jolex Del Pilar
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