Raven Squad Review [360]

Southpeak Games and developer Atomic Motion were not shy when promoting Raven Squad. From stating the real-time strategy/first person shooter hybrid offers “the best of both worlds” to claiming that it marks the birth of a new genre, the spin machine has been working overtime in the run up to Raven Squad’s release. However, there are two things we think you ought to take into account: 1) Raven Squad is nowhere near as innovative as it claims to be. 2) It does not, in fact, offer “the best of both worlds” – if anything it’s like one of those restaurants with a hundred dishes on the menu. Whatever you order, you know it’s probably going to taste like the inside of a dirty microwave. And such is the case with Raven Squad – despite offering two main gameplay disciplines, neither works very well. Why do one thing well when you can do two badly?

Like so many games that end up at the lower end of the scoring scale, Raven Squad has some good ideas that unfortunately remain underdeveloped. Indeed, while the idea of combining FPS and RTS mechanics is hardly new, in the right hands it can make for some engaging gameplay. Gearbox Software made similar steps with Brothers in Arms’ squad commands and tactical map view, while online shooter Battlefield 2’s Commander mode offers strategy mechanics in what is essentially an action game.  In Raven Squad, once you advance beyond the first couple of missions, you’re put in charge of two teams of special ops types, known collectively as Raven Squad. The team is tasked with sorting out a rebellion in the Amazon and lending a hand to the Brazilian troops in the area.  Each member of the squad has a special ability and you can switch control to any live member of either team at any point in the game. Or, you can forego the first person view altogether and, bar a few short sections, play the entire game as a real time strategy affair. Or, like we did, you can mix and match. Hit the Y button when in first person mode and the camera will zoom out to an overhead tactical map, giving you a much greater appreciation of where enemies and objectives are located.  You can also move your teammates and set targets for them to attack in the tactical view, but anyone who has played a proper RTS will soon discover that it’s all a bit limited and, sadly, this is a theme which applies to the FPS side of the game too.

Picking one main problem out of the almost endless list of things that are bad about Raven Squad is no easy task, but if forced we’d have to say the central game mechanics are hopelessly flawed. With regard to the FPS side of the game, Raven Squad is one of the most unwieldy, sluggish shooters we’ve played in a long time. The sub-par framerate and unresponsive controls combine to make playing Raven Squad as a shooter something akin to swimming in bricks. This isn’t helped by the distinctly moody hit detection, which means you can empty half a clip into an enemy’s head (even when the reticule is red, indicating you're on target) and you still won’t hit anything. There’s also no bullet penetration on offer and when you consider the painfully basic level design, featuring invisible walls aplenty and foot-high obstacles you can’t overcome, there’s a real feeling that Raven Squad is well behind the times. As a shooter, it simply can’t compete with the big name (and even a lot of the small name) shooters available for the Xbox 360. Sadly, it can’t compete as a RTS either, for two main reasons: the AI would struggle to outwit a chair and the game simply does not give you enough options.

On that first point, it’s worth noting that at least Atomic Motion is an equal opportunity developer and, in the spirit of egalitarianism, has made the friendly and enemy AI equally retarded. Enemies will often stare at you blankly, like they subsist on an exclusive diet of powerful hallucinogens, before realising that they’re supposed to be shooting at you. Other times, they’ll somehow know you’re there about five minutes before you do. They tend not to use cover unless they become physically stuck to it and largely seem content to charge right towards you or, sometimes, even past you before turning around and then shooting. Clearly, they’ve got a worse short term memory than that bloke out of Memento. They also tend to stick together and will happily move in single file so you can line up your aim and take them down with minimal movement. Which, frankly, is awfully considerate for enemy combatants.