Signal Ops

Comparing this to Rainbow Six or whatever is pointless - it just isn't that kind of game. Stands completely by itself - if you must classify it, I'd say it's a stealth-action-tactics game. NOT shooter at all. Weapons are purposely inaccurate to prevent turning it into one. OTOH melee weapons kill with one blow - as does the sniper with his rifle. If you want to rush in, guns blazing - forget it. Not the game for you. If you prefer striking from behind or avoiding enemies altogether - you're in for a treat! What makes it completely different are graphics, humour and, well ... signal ops. Everything looks like painted in water colours. In days of photo-realism, not sure if this was due to budget constraints, but it works great - esp. with the overall humour tone. It definitely doesn't take itself too seriously - in spite of the dystopian world. UI is deliberately wonky, de/briefings really hilarious and agents' drivel quite funny. It's fun to play and I really enjoy its vibe. The most unique feature though is what the game's name suggests: you control your (2 to 4) agents remotely and see only what their cameras see. These have quite limited transmit range though, so you have to move your single transceiver around to keep agents in its range. Well, you *can* blindly send an agent anywhere you want and if he manages to find his own way there - cool. If he gets stuck or killed while you don't see through his camera - need to try something different. Perhaps even restart level with different agents. Another thing is, transceiver needs power and works less than a minute on battery while you carry it to a new power source. And THIS is what makes the game so hard, intriguing and completely different from anything else out there. Still has some minor bugs, but NOTHING as bad than mentioned for the early versions. Unique fun if you have the patience for it - I love it and find it worth every penny. But if you look for a FPS or some serious tactical assault, keep looking.

+ Challenging. + Funny. - Guns are highly inaccurate, even at point-blank range. - Wonky controls. This game is artificially made more difficult because your weapons never hit. I've missed targets at point-blank range, yet the AI is able to unload a whole magazine of ammo into my face with a Vasily Zaytsev level of accuracy...why are my weapons never that accurate? This ultimately ruined the game for me and my friends. In some of the more combat-oriented levels, we struggled being able to hit anything, and it's not a network latency issue because I've had this is in single-player too. I'd gladly change my review score if it was fixed, either by official patch or 3rd-party mod. It's a pity because this is a really funny game, but unfortunately the accuracy/hit detection is the dealbreaker for me.

The game is nauseating. The camera movement, camera system, the walking view bob, it's all terrible on your eyes. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The combat is something a kid would put on steam for free and slap a "made with unity" sticker on it. The stealth is pretty basic. The controls are some of the worst controls I've ever experienced in any game ever. Everything you see and interact, feels wrong and sluggish. The guns are impossibly inaccurate. We're talking you can miss hitting an entire house with a revolver at 20 feet. You manage up to 3 characters. Want to know how you do that? All their viewscreens are constantly displayed and you just switch character. Your view doesn't change. So your second and third characters have tiny screen area, while the first character does nothing. And worse, all "screens" have a heavy "CRT filter" to make them warped and noisey because "atmosphere". It's got a cool hand-painted graphics atmosphere, and a story that definitely feels like something more is going on and you're probably working for the bad guys. Too bad you'll never see that story because the gameplay is unplayable. The average game time for ALL players on GOG is... two hours.

Plays nothing like Cannon Fodder, but makes me think of it constantly. It makes me think "would CF be like this as a squad FPS?". I see it like a game cross between the movies Brazil and Triplets of Bellevue. Has a couple buggy moments with the pathing and interaction, but plays fine in between. Control of the agents is "goofy" , but you can say its intentional. Its enyoyable, and feels very original. A bit of an "art project" vibe. Don't expect "more of X" when you play it. I'd say it needs a measure of patience to fully enjoy.k -scheherazade