1968 at the height of the cold war a B-52G Bomber crashes into the arctic with its full load of nuclear armament. When the plane is recovered it is discovered that one of its missiles is missing - it remains missing until now. The CIA discovers that a Russian gangster, Yebievdenko, has set up a deal to sell the missile to a nefarious Libyan leader who wants to use it to threaten the rest of the world. You have been called In, as a member of the Special Tactical Unit, to infiltrate the country and stop the deal going through...

Global Ops: Commando Libya is probably the most ill-timed game of all time, given the turmoil Libya has just undergone. The only PC thing about this game is the machine it runs on.

Ok! So I guess the developers didn’t know what changes would happen, but then picking on Libya and throwing in the Russians as the evil behind the throne takes the concept of cliché to new levels as the plot runs like a poor version of a Bond film, realised using the magic of a First Person Shooter.

The makers of this game have not given themselves an easy ride either, given that they have produced a game in one of the most popular and innovative game genres. To have any chance of success a game would have to offer something special by way of story or game play experience. Sad to say Global OPS offers little that hasn’t been seen before and usually better.

Let’s dispense with the silly plot first. Two CIA agents are deployed in Libya, unluckily one of them is you, with the idea that a couple of, admittedly, well-armed men could shoot their way through the country and its armed forces and stand a lollypop’s chance in hell of getting more than ten feet before they are shot for gross stupidity.

The game play would be a lot of fun if you were not aware that the game liberally borrows from its bigger cousins. Certainly if this was the first of its type then there would be a lot of fun to be had running around and killing things. The game works well, but struggles to achieve either anything which is exclusively its own or to have anything new to say or offer the genre.

Admittedly, this is a budget title, so you can forgive some of its limitation, but where it will fit in a world dripping with far slicker titles is hard to tell.

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Charles Packer