Close Combat:

First to Fight

Xbox, PC

When I was in high school, I wanted to do one of two things with life: work in the gaming industry or be a Marine. I was hoping this game would fuse my love for video games and the appeal of the Marines.

Unfortunately, anyone who plays this game will wonder why the United States hasn’t been invaded. The first thing I did was watch as one single terrorist wiped out my entire squad as they sat in a crouched position and were shot.

After a while, the game began to feel like an escort mission. The artifical intelligence is terrible. Your squad will stand in the open and be shot. They won’t watch your back and the only thing that sounds impressive, a room take-down, means the guy in front gets sacrificed while you storm into a room filled with enemies.

The controls are unlike any other first-person shooter and you only use one gun through most of the game.

In the tutorial the game explains that each member of your squad is assigned a different direction to watch so that the squad isn’t sneaked up on. This sounds good but it runs into problems when several enemies approach from the same direction. The member of your squad looking that direction will open fire on the incoming enemies, but the guys next to him will mostly keep pointed in the same direction they are assigned. That, along with the fact that your guys can’t hit anything, means you end up shooting all the time.

After playing first-person shooters based on World War II and the upcoming Star Wars movie, I was psyched to play one based on modern-day weapons and military tactics. This, however, is by far the least fun game I’ve played all semester. I just hope the Marine Corps isn’t relying on this game to boost enlistment.

Grade: D-