Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising : Games : Web Wombat

Online gaming is big business nowadays. The Koreans go mad for anything requiring the use of a modem and world gaming competitions have never had larger attendance figures.

Back in my day you'd have four likely lads sitting around a dingy garage in the suburbs with twenty yards of network cable, two herring/banana gourmet pizzas, a fridge full of caffinated beverages and a couple of copies of Quake. And this could only be seen as antisocial behaviour and a sure sign of Communist leanings.

What little we knew back then, eh?

The latest in a long line of military shooters, Novalogic's new game - while an obvious attempt to steal players from beneath the dope-laced umbrella of Battlefield Vietnam - isn't all that bad.

In fact, allowing an unrivalled 150 players to take part, without more than light lag, in land, air and sea-based assaults across Indonesia, Joint Operations is surprisingly competent.

The chief difference between Battlefield Vietnam and JO is that Novalogic's baby errs more on the side of realism, with short bursts the order of the day and stealth encouraged over Rambo-style antics.

Charging through the undergrowth with your Bowie knife at the ready will earn you a bullet in the head every time, and by the same token, snipers had best learn to relocate after every two shots, three at the outside, lest they fall victim to an annihilating barrage of return fire courtesy of revealing muzzle flash.

That's not to say charging at the enemy with an M60 spitting lead at appreciable fractions of light speed won't be rewarding, just that it won't be a winning tactic nearly as often as you would otherwise suspect.

Other than this rather important parting of the ways, Battlefield Vietnam and Joint Operations share much in common, although some might say JO does its job in a more comprehensive, if slightly less slick, manner.

150 human players at once, vehicles,
weapons and more? You better believe it!

For instance, vehicles on display include hovercraft, six types of helicopter, two amphibious All Terrain Vehicles, numerous peasant boats, Hummers, Jeeps, two strike cruisers and the Stryker Armoured Personnel Carrier, while 25 types of weapon plus numerous types of grenade and the occasional satchel charge are up for grabs.

All of the above vehicles drive, boat and/or fly (take your pick) very nicely, despite falling definitively into the 'arcade' category of vehicle manipulation, with simple controls and on occasion something close to a flagrant disregard for the laws of gravity.

Then again, when you're trying to drop a squad of crack Special Ops geeks into the charred remains of a rebel camp whilst avoiding SAMs and the occasional AK47 salvo, the last thing you need is to forget how the ejector seat works, so it would be fair to say that the simplified control scheme is a blessing in disguise.

Still, there's nothing like sitting in the back of a Chinook flying over rice paddies in Hanoi whilst listening to Hendrix run through a guitar solo, an experience sorely missing from JO, I'm sorry to say. Oh, the Gamelan Orchestra and Suling Flute with vocal accompaniment (I kid you not, take a look at the credits) is nice, but nothing beats 60s vinyl. Nothing.

Working from a modified Delta Force engine, JO manages to be pretty without ever reaching the level of whizz bang eye-candy. Good character models are let down by poorly textured weapons, and huge maps extend up to fifty square kilometres with foliage that leaves (no pun intended) something to be desired.

Those palm trees are looking mighty chunky, Cap'n. Sure, it's serviceable and in no way an eyesore but my suspicion remains that it may be time for Novalogic to look at a new engine for it's next game...

Unlike a lot of multiplayer games on first release, and one of the main reasons why I like Joint Ops so much, is that it actually works…without patches. Amazing, I know.

Weapons and vehicles are properly balanced and bug-tested, since there's nothing that ruins a good LAN match like some fool with a rapid-fire rocket launcher, and gameplay has been worked so that campers (pet hate) are guaranteed to get theirs.

"Sssh! You guys smell that?"

Best of all, PunkBuster comes supported out of the box, so it's that much harder for somebody to get their hands on a working aimbot (another pet hate).

Speaking of bots and their ilk, those who want to get a little practice in before heading off into the great unknown that is the Internet will be a tad underwhelmed, as the single player training section is most definitely the low point of Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising.

Employing bad AI, hoards of enemies suffering from the previous malady and teammates who happen to be excellent at failing to do anything of any consequence, it is as if the whole experience is designed to force you online out of the need to actually "play" against someone with half the mental capacity of roadkill.

When you finally do get online, with the help of some kind of broadband I would hope, servers are always reasonably packed, yet even on the biggest maps with a near-full contingent of players, lag is never any more severe than what you would expect from a friendly four-a-side in UT2K4.

This, I need not remind you, is a pretty impressive accomplishment when you consider that we're talking 150 players at once. Then again, after 30 days you'll have to pay NovaWorld (they who run the Novalogic servers) for the privilege of coming up against that many people in one go, or else go back to a meagre 64 players per server.

That's right, I'm apparently going to miss eighty-six random people so much I'll be willing to put my hand in my pocket just for them.

Not. Going. To. Happen. If ever there were something I wouldn't do under any circumstances whatsoever, even at gunpoint, that would have to be it [We have witnesses to vouch for him - Ed].

Financial farce aside, those looking for a fun-yet-serious multiplayer shooter can't go wrong with Novalogic's latest and greatest, even if the AI is a bit dumb, and provided you aren't looking for the next Halo, you shan't go away disappointed.

Game: Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising
Players: 1-150
Online: Yes
Developer: Novalogic

Rating: 80%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising is on the shelves now.

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