Special Forces: Team X (STX) is a team centric 3rd Person cover based shooter, featuring brutal firefights between elite squads of special force operatives. STX takes place in tomorrow's world, one that is infested with conflicts amongst the geopolitical power brokers. A world in which conventional warfare is dead, diplomacy is an affront to the hidden agenda of national objectives, and global strategy is accomplished using clandestine military power...

Special Forces: Team X (STX) is a pretty impressive 3rd Person shooter where using the environment as cover is key to winning each round. The game, which only supports online play, allows you to dart to the nearest point of cover by pressing the "cover" button which ensures you duck and dive before the enemy can kill you. Once under cover you have the option of firing blind, popping your head up for a closer look at your surroundings or diving to a different area.

As is standard with games of this kind, when you start you're going to spend a lot of time dying as higher ranked players mow you down. In fact you can appear to empty your entire gun into an enemy before they die, while they appear to shoot just a single bullet.

The graphics are interesting and have a wonderful cartoon feel. And the fact that each round's environment is made up of a combination of three very different maps segments means that the gaming arena always feels fresh. The game play is also pretty hardcore - especially for a budget title. On the negative side, the game does feel a little underdeveloped - but not as to be so noticeable as to spoil your enjoyment.

There's a lot of customisation (which is slowly unlocked as you progress through the levels). These include changing the appearance of your character, upgrading your gun and choosing from a range of options to customise each playable map (here everyone chooses which of the optional 3-segments they want to be bolted together. The ones with the most votes are joined together to make up the map). You can even customize your own taunt to wind up your enemy.

One of the slight niggles I had was that you are randomly selected to play as either the red or the blue team. The problem is, is that unlike other shooters you see your teammates as your colour and the enemies as the other. Normally you are always one colour (as it makes it easier to remember what team you're on). For example Call of Duty always has your team as green while the enemy is red. Flipping between colours game after game becomes a little frustrating a little too quickly. If you're wandering around away from your teammates, in the hopes of picking of the enemy by flanking them, you'll soon get frustrated at trying to remember which colour team you're supposed to be shooting at.

The game play is pretty much what you'd expect from a shooter. There are a handful of gaming types, but the ones that are the most enjoyable are straight team based matches and domination-style games where you must capture three different areas (A, B and C) on the map.

Other than the complaint of team colours, which can actually spoil the enjoyment of the game, this is a pretty enjoyable 3rd person shooter - especially when you consider the bargain price.

7

Nick Smithson