Drop Team

TBG Software developers recently finished working on Drop Team, as the game saw retail via digital distribution on the 1st of June. Drop Team is a first person shooter with strong strategic and war game elements that became the trademark of publisher Battlefront.com over the years. Within just two months after release, two content updates were served to the audience in the form of downloadable patches and there's talk of an upcoming expansion. In an attempt to give players a taste of Drop Team, the publisher launched a multiplayer demo in July, the same build we have the pleasure of reviewing right now.

Story

The multiplayer demo shows no sign of the supposedly in-depth implementation and persistent history of the Rim. The wars of the Mu Arae Space and the Galactic Core have their archive safely kept here.

Gameplay

You can stick to the first person action and shoot your enemies with deadly precision while driving into the heat of combat. A great number of tanks and other assault heavy metal are perfectly suited for such a task, yet it's not the only way to play Drop Team. These massive monsters need support, like engineering vehicles digging revetments for its allies or laying obstacles for the enemy. During the deploy mode, one can assume the role of a team's Commander, spending more time on Tactical Display, coordinating team efforts by issuing direct commands to the AI helpers. Sensor deploys, jammers, mines and turrets will greatly bolster the collective effort.

The 1.1 patch saw the introduction of vehicle mounting infantry that should spice things up a bit. Although we're talking about a FPS type game, action is not that fast paced. Such a rush will result in serious vehicle stack reduction since base controlled towers and bots are very adept at destroying carrier ships in mid air should they come within range. Each and any projectile has limited range and requires precise calculations concerning trajectory, not to mention the fact that they usually fly 1-2 seconds in mid air and are susceptible to destruction by base defense. Laser weapons are imbalanced in this respect, being unstoppable and delivering damage instantly with no range limitation.

The maps I've played so far were of medium size, but the developers readied huge, detailed landscapes with up to 1000 square kilometers. Strategy bears the mark of real world warfare, where atmospheric density and gravity can drastically change the tactical situation. Besides, armies are scattered all over the planets of the Rim system. Trees can't be run over by tanks yet they fall under artillery fire and you eventually can use the logs as launching ramps for fast vehicles. The engine supports some great physically realistic moves.

Drop Team includes 20 scenarios plus a 10-mission single player campaign. Developers plan to offer new scenarios for download on a regular basis, as well as player submitted content. In fact, the latest patch saw the intoduction of such a scenario. Supposedly, Drop Team runs on Mac OS-X, Linux, and Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and has been designed to be very scalable with a wide range of systems. It's always nice to find a game with great portability, but after seeing how it moves on my system, I am wondering why developers didn't stick to just one OS and make it work better. The game was tested on a computer system far beyond the recommended specifications, yet loading times largely vary. I can't explain it, since the servers were always the same, running just two different maps. Sometimes loading times end after 15 seconds, while for some other you would need to wait the boring 2 minutes. I'd say optimization is lacking.

Concept

Since we're talking Counter Strike with assault vehicles, there are no regular stats, skill system or ways of advancement. Drop Team is a straight on military combat simulator that sends you sprawling right into the middle of the battle. Each piece of machinery or equipment comes in limited supply. The main idea is very simple: drop in and fight. Your piece of machinery should be fitting the needs of the moment, like AA to guard the base from incoming enemy helicopter deploys that venture too close, mines for small fast vehicles of heavy guns to counter high armored vehicles. While some are more powerful than others in either terms of firepower, defense or speed, it all boils down to strategic placement. One team will be defending the base while the other mounts an attack, capture the Flag style. Two point counters are used for score as the game ends when either team gets the decisive advantage and their counter get the maximum value.

Unfortunately, the demo fails to show much of the game's potential for some obvious reasons. One can rarely see 6 human players on the map, the rest up to 16 being computer controlled bots. While the AI is not brilliant it has no problem scoring a bull's eye on your slow tank or, most annoying, you carrier helicopter. Bases are basically large open field areas with just a building or two for cover. You can't defend open areas with anything less of pure firepower because you don't have enough room to maneuver and the terrain isn't helping. But who is going to provide the firepower if bots keep rushing the enemy dying one by one? It's almost hilarious, as the attacking team always wins. The game is easy to learn but hard to master. I can't say Drop Team brings any new elements to the play table; it's all been done before.

Video

The official site has some mighty good things to say about the Drop Team engine, praising its multiple object simulation capabilities. Let's take a tank for instance. It has a top turret child, two wheel children and the main bulk as dependencies. Each of them can be individually hit and disabled thus model complexity is greater than usual. Smart calculations are applied each time a projectile hits the vehicle armor as damage can fully go through, or if the armor is too high, it can simply ricochet into oblivion. Unfortunately, these are just words, great in theory and useless in action because the result is the same. Sure, every one in a while your Jeep will have its wheels jammed from too much damage and will keep on going in a straight line, annoying the hell out of the player, but that's not what I call a feature. Vehicles explode the same way you saw in other games; projectiles follow round trajectory path; considering physics, nothing unexpected here. Textures are poor, model look decent and the overall look of the game still leaves room for improvement. Probably the most impressive graphical effect is smoke, since you can see it from a very long distance and battlefields look like burned out oil fields on occasions. Why would you want to make smoke the CPU killer in a light looking game, I do not know.

Sound

Being a heavy machine combat simulator, I would have expected some sort of music to drive players into a killing frenzy, but someone has been a bad boy so he's not getting any music in Drop Team. The menus specifically show that you can turn music on and off, yet the demo features none, not one note, nothing. Since the game strives to achieve a realistic environment, one should judge sounds by the degree of immersion attained throughout the playing experience, thus sounds are all right, yet not fully convincing.

Multiplayer

Playing each map for one hour solely with bots to keep me company, I didn't feel particularly entertained. Then again, with 12 vs 12 human opponents, things could suddenly get interesting since the most important aspect of team play is coordination. It's a shame base layout is so basic, because it greatly limits strategic options. It's no problem for attackers to surround the area and nuke everyone out before they have a chance to switch fire or deploy new machinery.

Conclusion

Drop Team was released some time ago and developers already think about an expansion pack to turn the game's capabilities to a World War II theme that Battlefront.com greatly appreciates. Instead of chasing add-ons I would suggest TBG Software take another look at the title and improve what they already have. Successful games aim to please as many players as possible, yet I'm afraid Drop Team fun is highly situational. Both concept and implementation sustain cheap results that would primarily appeal to war-game fans but less to anyone else.