Offensive Combat: Redux

Now if you’re like me, you may be a little bored of the FPS multiplayer market, seeing as Call of duty’s influence has grown rapidly over the last decade. We’ve got plenty of online multiplayers that are stylise military themes but when was the last time a multiplayer FPS was fun? Team Fortress 2 is one of the few and we’re still away from Quake Champions.



Now when I heard about Offensive Combat: Redux and saw the trailers, I thought this would be that return of multiplayer games like the great Timesplitters series. Those FPS multiplayer games that were weirdly wonderful, fast and frantic with a bunch of colourful characters and weapons to choose from. While offering some mildly offensive with some tongue in cheek humour.

What my experience with Offensive combat summed up to disappointment.

Now this could be me assuming that the game will be balls to the wall insane but the game is setting itself to be what I described in the previous paragraphs. It’s meant to be fast, weird and frantic with plenty of humour and above all, it’s meant to be fun. What it turns out to be is just a run of the mill Call of Duty clone that adds some neat (but limited) character customization and no real sense of humour. Oh look, a Donald Trump joke. Oh great.

Other than you can have a character whose head is poop. As I said, the humour is thin.



So maybe I’m sounding rather harsh with my criticisms towards the game. While Offensive Combat Redux doesn't do anything necessarily wrong, it’s the fact it does very little overall. By this I mean the lack of new ideas, interesting gameplay mechanics or just making a game that’s enjoyable or different from what we’ve got plenty of on the market already.

I know not every game should offer something ground-breaking but each game should at least confident in what it has to offer. It's a straight up online FPS with a neat character creation and a mild sense of humour. That's really it. There's no story campaign which is fine as games like Counter Strike benefit from not focusing on a story but rather the multiplayer modes and competitive element. But Offensive Combat has a major problem, there are only a couple of game modes to play and what’s on offer isn’t really exciting. I'm not sure if more will be added in the future but so far there are only four modes. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the flag and a practice mode where you kill bots. Really?!

This is a poor standard to deliver on, considering games like Halo, Call of Duty and even smaller titles have at least 6 or more modes to play. Not to forget high level of modifiers to change the gameplay's pacing or the many dynamic twists certain series have had on their multiplayers. Halo's multiplayer alone has more layers to its gameplay than this and only having three modes with no unique, interesting features just means there's little to draw you in or keep you invested. Even Timesplitters had an abundance of game modes that are ideal for multiplayer or single player with many of them being very creative and outright fun.



The character creation is a highlight for Offensive Combat as it allows to fully customising your characters with alterations on heads, arms, torsos and smaller additions. From making a poop samurai to a crazed cheer leading bum. There’s a decent selection to mix and match from but more detail, props and additions would’ve made this feature much better. Maps look great and expand across various themes from Japanese temples, UFOs attacking a small town and a fire cover alien planet. While the map designs aren’t vastly complex, they’re compelling enough for new players and for those hard-core players to master layouts and use the terrains to their advantages.

Aside from the character creation, there was the ability to obtain and level up your weapons which was much stronger, as the level of weapons, additions and perks you could purchase was pretty good. There was a lot on offer for all types of players from shotguns, assault rifles and more with plenty of features to improve upon their use in the game. Offensive combat could’ve benefited with more unique weaponry but what’s here is fine.



As for the core gameplay, Offensive Combat felt sluggish and didn't even match the levels of pacing or speed to Team Fortress 2 or similar games it was trying to duplicate. It’s hoping for a middle ground of the faster, more fluent style of gameplay from Team Fortress yet is held back from the grounded approach of military games such as Call of Duty. It’s a huge conflict between two styles and it’s holds the game back massively.

Sadly, Offensive Combat is a restrictive experience that tries to appease everyone from those who love Timesplitters and those who love Call of Duty. It’s an attempted mash up of two different styles and in the end just ends up being highly repetitive with little personality and feels more like a foundation of a game for developers to build upon. Little game modes on offer, limited character customisation and just slow, sluggish gameplay make it difficult to fully enjoy Offensive Combat.

I've seen other comment saying it's great to play to kill ten minutes. Sadly, it's appeal will last all of those ten minutes and no more. However, if the developers add more to the character customisation, maps and modes, then this will be a better experience.

+ Good level of level customisation and character creation
+ Good level design
-- Only three main game modes
-- Lacks any dynamic features
- Limited in gameplay

A Steam copy of Offensive Combat: Redux was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review