The US Marines have been acting as ‘peacekeepers’ and been sent to trouble spots ever since World War II. A thankless task and, often seen as gung-ho troublemakers, these guys are often expected to do jobs well outside the modern soldiers’ normal role. Close Combat: First to Fight sees you playing as a Corporal in charge of a team of three Marines operating in the troubled city of Beirut, hunting down various Opfor (Opposing Forces) faction leaders who’ve been labelled in the now familiar “pack of cards” way.
CCFtF doesn’t try to hide the fact that it was inspired by the Rainbow Six 3 games, and borrows various gameplay elements from it, including its 3-man squad who are under your control, the control method and its heavy tactical leanings – wade in all guns blazing and you’ll die horribly even on the easiest setting, this is a tactical shooter and make no mistake.
Ordering your team around is simplicity itself, you use a ‘radial dial’ method - hold the A button down and four situation-sensitive commands will be available to you, such as Take Down, Frag Take Down, Cover or Suppress. At times your Marines seem highly intelligent as they protect themselves well and take out many enemies before you even see them (although I’d question whether they’re “smarter than me” as the game's tutorial suggests). In a big one-up on Rainbow Six you can not only order the team around individually (even to cover a certain spot whilst you advance to out-flank the enemy), but also call in the assistance of other Marine buddies should you get in a tight spot, in the welcome form of Cobra gunship air strikes, mortar barrages and even a sniper to pick off those stubborn ‘campers’.
As you fight your way through the streets and sewers of Beirut the scenery looks consistently good, with excellent animations on both the Marines and the Opfor terrorists (who die in many dramatic ways). Visually the game lets itself down badly with many old-school glitches like enemies/bodies clipping through walls, dropped weapons that stand on end rather than fall to the floor, and one of the poorest smoke effects I’ve seen on Xbox. Other low spots include the sound, with repetitive sound bites/voice samples - the sound also seems to lose synchronisation as sometimes you fire weapons and they make no noise – very disappointing as when it all works as it’s supposed to, the game sounds great, and makes for a lot of atmosphere.
The weapons are all pretty authentic-looking, Marines get the M16A4 with the M203 grenade launcher attachment, M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), Shotgun, frag and smoke Grenades to play with, but can also pick up discarded faction weapons like the AK-74 assault rifle and the RPK light machine gun. You can also use various emplacement weapons, including some fixed to vehicles, (you can’t actually drive any of them).
Control and aiming is smooth and accurate, but after something like Halo 2 both movement and control will seem sluggish – you can run when under fire, but this requires a silly ‘double tap’ movement of the left stick, and this seems needlessly clunky when you have analogue sticks. Using the A button for ‘command’, ‘use’ and ‘pick up items’ is also completely daft and often causes confusion. Also the reload animation may be realistic, and take the correct amount of time to do, but after Halo allowed it three years ago, it seems hugely primitive not to be able to break into this if you get surprised by an enemy and require a melee attack. The relatively slow and deliberate pace of the game suits the tactical feel perfectly though, and Close Combat: First to Fight lives up to its name and supplies some really good shoot outs, where you genuinely feel like you have to wheedle the enemy out of often superior positions in a life or death game of chess (you can even try and make them surrender with a ‘comply’ command). Handily you can heal wounded squad members with medikits, and should one get badly wounded you have to call a Corpsman to have him rescued before you can continue.
Although CCFtF’s campaign mode didn’t set our world alight, and as you might expect with a tactical team shooter, its multiplayer options give it a real boost, particularly with an excellent split screen, system link or Xbox Live co-op and fire team arena modes, which are just about as good as Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon 2 in our book. In co-op, even on the easier settings the game forces you to work as a team, and although you can specify unlimited lives, completing missions is always a challenge with plenty of atmosphere.
Best filed towards the front of the “good but not great, playable but flawed” section, Close Combat: First to Fight is an accomplished title that has some serious annoyances that hamper the enjoyment factor. It could have used the sort of attention and polish at the testing stage that Marines give their dress uniforms – if that had been the case we might have been talking about a new team shooter Xbox Live classic.
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