CT Special Forces [L.S.P., Euro release, GBA, 2002]
Good points: Passable minigames and two unique boss fights (out of four) reminiscent of boss battles in better games.
Bad points: Slow player characters with quirky aiming schemes; swarms of hard-to-kill enemies, often offscreen, that lay down interlocking fields of fire; boring environments; unwieldy weapon switching. 90% of the game, in essence.
More inspired by Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, Turrican, Counter-Strike, and even Rainbow Six than Contra or Metal Slug, L.S.P.'s CT Special Forces (aka CTSF) tells the tale of two fellows made out of stone who trade blows with armies of tough Counter-Strike terrorists. The game garnered attention before its release for its great-looking 2D visuals, which looked (from static screenshots) nearly competitive with Metal Slug Advance, with cartoony-looking enemies and colorful backgrounds, all oozing with detail. On top of that, the game offers first-person sniping, a parachuting minigame, and even a vertical shooter minigame! On top of all that, players with a link cable (and a friend who is itching to play the game co-op) can hook it up for two player...fun. Playing the completed game, there is barely any diversity in background graphics within the game's missions - but boring scenery is hardly the end of CTSF's troubles. Despite some intriguing ideas, this really is a lousy game.
The game's main problems are related to your movement and weapons, which conspire with repetitive types of enemy encounters in the map design to effectively kill any promise of fun the game had to offer.
Aside from shamelessly ripping off the parachuting sequences found in the first minute of the first Metal Slug game on the Neo Geo Pocket Color, this game is nearly nothing like it (despite being compared - favorably! - to the portable Slugs in nearly every review). Aside from the MP5 and machine gun, you can't fire when jumping (there's the Rainbox Six influence - yes, a bit of a stretch, perhaps), and even with the two weapons that you can fire in midair, your fire is limited to shooting straight forward. When standing still, your options are increased to firing when crouching (a laser sight appears in the form of a short straight line touching the end of the bullet's impact point), and firing upwards at roughly 80 degrees. It does not let you shoot enemies farther away than normal, so listening to enemies grunt when hit is the only way to tell if you're landing shots offscreen. A further wrinkle is added when your character is standing at the edge of a ledge - they immediately enter a ridiculous balancing animation and cannot fire. This makes it very frustrating in spots to get a quick shot in and retreat. This already removes much of what made Contra and Metal Slug great: the ability to react to developing situations - quickly!
Your operatives are equipped by default with an H&K MP5-lookalike which fires at an extremley slow rate of fire in semiautomatic mode only - every time you want to squeeze off a shot you need to mash the B button again. A number of other weapons with limited ammunition become available through the game - belts of machine gun ammo allow the MP5 to fire somewhat quickly (still slower than a burst of enemy fire), but this should have been the default for the MP5. Grenades (always mapped to right shoulder button) let you hit enemies over barriers, do high damage to an enemy right on top of you, or even kill a few enemies at once. This ends up being the most valuable extra weapon in the game. Cannisters of flamethrower fuel allow the MP5 firing a short flame - an amusing sight - but it can only be used while standing, not when crouching or aiming upwards. Thus this weapon is quite simply useless for everything but objects which won't fight back and possibly enemies on a set path that cannot target you (a situation usually better served with the machine gun or even default MP5, which have much better range). Finally, rocket propelled grenades appear in later levels, but by the time you find these, most enemies take two grenade (or rocket) hits to dispatch.
The next small problem is that of switching weapons. The left shoulder button allows you to swap between all weapons and items, which are listed no matter whether they're available or not (or even usable in the mission). In order, the L button switches through:
Your default MP5
Belt-fed ammo (the "machine gun")
RPG rounds (not found until later missions)
Flamethrower fuel (not found in the first mission)
A Grappling hook (used multiple times in certain missions, but not at all in others)
Handcuffs (used maybe three or four times throughout the game)
...and then back to the default gun. On the plus side, if you select a weapon for which you have no ammo, the game will switch back to the default weapon (but not fire). However, this all wastes valuable time. This forces you to take cover when switching weapons. Note that the handcuffs are always in supply - these would actually be left on an enemy - but grappling hooks (which in real life can be reused) must be found somewhere throughout the level for each use, and disappear after being thrown (and you can't descend back down into a hole with them, even if it's a short passage).
Aside from the parachute jumping, sniping, helicopter shooter sections, and rare use of special items, gameplay consists of running through a mission and shooting enemies, if you feel like it. There really is no reason to fight enemies if you can get away from them, but your character's safety usually demands that you spend lots of time chipping away at your enemies from afar, and this activity will consume over 80% of your game time, probably much more. Enemy behavior is limited to two types - those that run and shoot along a set path (aside from the armored vehicles, which can actually stop and shoot at you), and those that stay stationary (usually hiding behind objects). Only cars, snipers, or stationary enemies will react to your presence by turning around in order to shoot in your general direction. The developers thought it more important that bullets come straight out of a gun than allow enemies the ability to actually hit you, but the angle of the enemy's barrel won't be noticed nearly as much as the fact that standing directly under a sniper means they can't hit you. Thus these guys only pose a problem when two are right next to each other and offer interlapping fields of fire, or when there are enemies at your level as well. If there aren't, all you need do is stand out a bit to one side, aim up, and keep shooting.
The missions overcompensate for this problem by setting up countless situations where you'll have to enter an area where overwhelming amounts of fire multiple enemies forces you to hunt down save spots and kill enemies individually - usually by jumping up, taking a shot, and getting back to cover, and hoping the shot lands. As even the first mission's cannon fodder enemies take a handful of shots to kill, this means the game is exceedingly tedious - and ridiculous. Fighting two enemies on a car with a mounted machine gun is often as simple as running right up to the driver's door so that the gunner can't shoot you, and then jogging alongside the car and shooting (strangely, jeeps make a grunting sound when shot - you're damaging the car, not the occupants, judging from the huge explosion) until it blows up - at which point you need not to be near it.
Enemies aren't the only problems with levels - some spots will be marked with arrows, telling you where you'll need to jump below (but only the first time you need to jump in). For the most part, pressing up and down on the directional pad will let you know if there's solid ground down below, and when you're jumping about on rooftops, stay within that building (i.e. don't jump past the outer wall), and don't jump into any pits you didn't jump up from unless you can see the ground or a ledge. There's really not much mystery to it, unlike certain reviewers seem to think.
To their credit, the mappers filled each area with explosive objects, and these can assist in helping kill enemies - but they small amount of damage they offer isn't usually worth exposing your character in order to set them off.
Interestingly, the snipers and default enemies in the last mission look almost exactly like the Arctic Avenger and Guerilla Warfare terrorist models from Counter-Strike (right down to the Guerilla's distinctive red bandana), and as a whole enemy designs seem to take their cues from that game (with a few looking more from the Metal Slug games, such as the fellow with two assault rifles). I can't say I mind one way or another, as the game's shortcomings and overall blandness make it hard to appreciate or be annoyed by any homage.
Boss fights are a positive on the whole. Every mission has a boss, but those for missions two and four consist of guys wielding two guns at once standing in place and shooting while gunmen flood the screen - you'll need to hit the boss with grenades repeatedly while taking damage from their clueless goons (who quite literally aren't trying to shoot you, only getting lucky occassionally). To be quite frank these two are a waste, as you just need to force your way through, and seeing your CT put their fist in the air victorious when enemies are still onscreen and firing is quite poor. The interesting boss fights are for missions one and three and pit you against vehicles. The first forces you to think a bit, and you'll need to hit the cannon which appears from the back of the vehicle and dodge the volley of bombs it drops on you. The third has you dropping into pits to hit an armored vehicle with grenades or rockets from its underside, but punji stakes quickly rise and force you out momentarily.
Aside from those two boss fights, the minigames are more fun than the actual game itself - perhaps because they are limited in scope and thus not saddled with useless quirks and gameplay conventions. When you find a bag, you'll parachute off to the right (sounds suspicious, but there's only one type of bag in the game). Hit the fire button during freefall when the arrows are in the red zone on both counters. This is tougher than it sounds, but doable. The sniper sequences (similar to a certain installment of Bionic Commando) are unnecessarily tough as the scope is tiny, and enemies have a knack for hiding from view - try to shoot hostage taking gunmen last because your health meter is refilled after saving a hostage. The overhead shooter sections aren't brilliant, as the types of enemies are far too limited - only tanks, helicopters, and two variety of missile launching vehicles - and one must be directly over a tank to drop a bomb, which often results in instant damage (or death). Happily, health packs are plentiful, but you must find them and fly over before the screen scrolls away (as the playfield is somewhere around two screens wide, you won't often see them in time). The safe way to play these sections is to dodge most enemy fire, take out enemies when you're sure it is safe, and only attack tanks after they've taken a shot.
The game's filled with nice details, from the laser sight and various idle animations to three layers of parallax scrolling in the jungle. You'll come across nice background details like the crashed helicopter in the first mission or other background objects (pumping oil wells, burnt city buses), but every mission has one set of graphics which is used for every level in that mission. There will be one background, one type of outdoors terrain, perhaps some tiles for an underground bunker, some barriers (which you must sink far too many shots into - enemies cannot damage their own, of course, which is aggravating as their rate of fire is so much higher than yours), and then a fair smattering of other objects (for the first mission, pine trees and small tree stumps are common). Then, of course, there will be things that simply don't make any sense, such as the woman who appears on the other side of some crates in a section of the last stage, and runs away without doing anything (I'm wondering if I should try chucking a grenade). There is only one music track for each mission, and while these are decent Amiga-style compositions, they are very short (you likely won't be able to focus on them enough to be annoyed).
CT Special Forces is, for 2D sidescrolling military action, the Game Boy Advance's best "hurry up and wait" simulator, no doubt. Most any firefight can be solved by hiding and then taking out enemies. Which, as said before, isn't actually necessary, but makes the levels more convenient to play. At worst, this is about as fun as scrubbing halls at the local National Guard base with an industrial floor buffer - but less focused - wouldn't it be nice if you could just walk through a hallway and shoot a pennant at the end instead of actually doing work? Oddly enough, this generic series has survived this installment to gather two improved sequels on the GBA and an upcoming 3D release on PC, PlayStation 2, and XBox, which looks promising.
One last thing - after beating the four missions you get a special password. What could it be? Why, the amazing ability to select either Stealth Owl (the SAS guy, in the gasmask), or Raptor (the guy with the huge backpack). Wow! Here's the code the game gives you: 0202. Others are available to let you start any level with either character, which you'll get on your second playthrough (but start with 0202).
Other opinions:
Craig Harris, IGN: 6, Passable. The game, or the review? Sadly, the author focuses too much on the "leaps of faith" which really aren't that hard to figure out, but doesn't mention that the game rewards those who exploit the game system. Mr. Harris does mention the sound's Amiga roots - not surprising given the developers' origin, but pleasant to see no less.
http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/463/463169p1.html IGN's "Press Average" is 7.0, "Reader Average" is 7.4.
Frank Provo, GameSpot: 7, Good. "Comparisons to Metal Slug aren't without merit, but CT Special Forces carves its own identity thanks to the intricacy of its levels." "[The] helicopter stages are actually better than many of the stand-alone shoot-'em-ups ... for the Game Boy Advance." Yikes!
http://www.gamespot.com/gba/action/c...es/review.html
John Guesnier, Nintendojo: 6.5/10. "It's just a shame to see the odd direction tthe [sic] developer took with by slowing the game's action down so much. However, qualms aside, the game is a solid experience with enough variety to show most any fan of the genre a good time."
http://www.nintendojo.com/reviews/GB...php?1119313497
Zachary Gasiorowski, Mygamer.com: 6.4, Moderate. "I'm sorry to say that this game needs to be avoided despite a solid graphical effort."
http://www.mygamer.com/index.php?pag...reviews&id=524
Wicked Toast: 4 "slices" out of 5. "Despite the developers' indecision whether they wanted to make a shootemup or a more methodical sort of game like Splinter Cell, CTSF is a fine foray into a field dominated primarily by Metal Slug."
http://www.wickedtoast.com/article.php?id=141
There are currently three reviews on GameFAQs: 1/10 by bluberry, 9/10 by a guy who can't spell Motorola, and 3/10 from somebody with a Phantasy Star Online reference in their handle. Oddly enough, the two most critical reviews are most worthwhile.
CT Special Forces review: feedback, please!
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