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Do you guys remember the game Battalion Wars on the GameCube? It was initially going to
be the console version of the game Advance Wars, developed by Nintendo’s Intelligent
Systems, but got the name change as it turned into a game that mixed third-person shooting
with strategy and controlling different squad members. Well, the game I have today is a
lot like that, except it’s a lot darker, it’s set in World War 2, and it has a guy
who reminds me of Duke Nukem. It’s The Outfit for the Xbox 360.
The Outfit follows a group of a few different soldiers in the American army who learn of
a general in the Wehrmacht who is terrorizing villages, even killing women and children.
The game uses a sort of old school “capture this area and use it as a respawn point”
system, and although this hasn’t been used recently, it actually works really well. The
game gives you a number of different options for reinforcing, adding more vehicles, calling
in airstrikes, and several other things to help you along the way. You’ll also be controlling
your own soldier at the same time, and this part of the game is all third-person shooting
with rifles, grease guns, bazookas, and even flamethrowers.
Control in The Outfit is really its weakest point. While aiming works fairly well, movement
in both on foot and in vehicles feels very sluggish and imprecise. It is definitely not
a game breaker, as you will get used to it, but it will bug you when you have trouble
turning around in tanks. The problem seems to stem from the fact that you are both the
gunner and the driver in these sections, so while the right stick is for aiming guns,
all you have for the vehicle is the left stick. This means you turn and accelerate with the
same analog stick, and this is much more frustrating than it sounds. Hit detection is also pretty
bad. Shooting at an enemy 30 times before he actually takes a hit is a pain.
But The Outfit really isn’t about the third-person shooting by itself; it’s about the combination
of this and using strategy and your squadmates to complete each objective, and the game does
this very well. The experience is pretty seamless. You’ll have the ability to actually capture
specific types of buildings to gain access to airstrikes or other special abilities,
and you can then use these later to help yourself out of a tough area. Your squad can also be
used to man different weapons and attack the enemies you order them to, and you can use
points to call in reinforcements if something goes wrong. The Outfit really does a good
job of using old shooter concepts and not making them feel dated.
What does feel dated, though, are the visuals. It’s expected, as this game is more than
5 years old, and the game uses a slightly cartoony style, but textures, characters,
and environments all look pretty bad, even for an early 360 game. Voice acting is actually
pretty good, as is the music. It fits the dark, yet approachable tone of the game nicely.
Actually, I don’t really think this got an M rating for violence. It’s nothing worse
than what you’d see in most teen rated games, but the subject matter is a little bit more
mature. While I wouldn’t call The Outfit a tremendous
game, it’s interesting in how it manages to make some dated concepts still feel fresh.
If you can find this cheap, I’d definitely recommend it.