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When Brute Force burst onto the market, it had been preceded by pre-release hype pointed towards comparing the game favorably to Halo, a first-person shooter and one of the Xbox’s premiere titles. In many ways, Brute Force, a third-person shooter, resembles, but doesn’t come close, to the compelling gameplay, graphic diversity, incredible level design, and story involvement of Halo. (In the interests of up-front journalism, I must say that, despite my penchant for RPG’s, playing Halo was one of my top five gaming experiences over a 25-year period!) That aside, in its own right, Brute Force is a game of some length, with outstanding graphics, plenty of action, and is a blast to play.
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Gameplay
With a fairly typical “save our world” scenario, you command a squad of four assorted creatures, some human and others animal-like. Each has special skills, like the ability to wield two weapons at once, and even stealth. At any time, you can choose which of the four to control, though, generally, the gamer will probably stick with one, and sometimes even ignore the others.
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The gang treks through 6 massive levels, trying to complete a number of missions per level along the way. A system similar to Halo’s superb “checkpoints” assures that the player’s demise will not return the squad to the beginning of the level. Rather, you may load the game from the last milestone reached.
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There are plenty of baddies to mow down and disintegrate along the way. Without much variety in the constant onslaught, and practically indistinguishable designs from level to level, Brute Force takes on a pure frag-fest mentality, seemingly always in the same place. For many gamers, including myself, this did not get in the way, and the fast-and-furious action could get quite tense. There’s something undeniably gripping about games like this that make you come back for more and more.
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Though differentiation between the environments was difficult at best, graphics are crisp and let you discern objects and terrain features. The monsters are wonderfully drawn, and I experienced no slowdown between locations.
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Bottom Line
I recommend Brute Force, as a pleasurable experience. Particularly now, with recent eBay knockdown prices in the $10-12 range, the game costs just a bit more than a week’s rental. (Recently, I spied Brute Force on sale for just $14.99 at a huge video store chain.) Though I did not try the other modes out, Brute Force permits several multiplayer modes.
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