extra
Fondly remembered, if flawed, Brute Force was
the squad-based shooter that tried to scratch the
itch that Halo had started CHRIS BURKE
PUBLISHER MICROSOFT GAME STUDIOS / DEVELOPER DIGITAL ANVIL / FORMAT XBOXWhen it landed
with a brute force
of its own in 2001,
Microsoft’s first
console had been
accompanied by
hands-down the
best launch title ever. It was Halo that
put the Xbox into gamers’ homes,
despite the fact they may already
have owned Sony’s well-established
rival system, then on its second
iteration and with enough games to
satisfy even the most prolific and
hardcore players. Other Xbox launch
titles, such as Project Gotham Racing
and Dead Or Alive 3, were great
games, of course, but there was a
feeling initially that the Xbox may
lack the library of its competitor, and
gamers were hungry for more titles as
good as Halo: Combat Evolved.
Enter Digital Anvil and its squad
shooter Brute Force. This
game had the distinction
of being the first game
announced post-Xbox
launch, though it would
be 2003 before it arrived
on the console. Digital
Anvil was an Austin,
Texas-based game
company formed by Chris
Roberts, creator of space
combat sim Wing Commander. The
company’s strengths were in strategy
games and combat simulators, but
that all changed when it was bought
by Microsoft in 2000 and tasked with
making its in-development PC squad
shooter a first-party Xbox title instead.
The developer’s pedigree led many to
expect that the mechanics of Brute
Force would focus heavily on strategy
and tactics, but the company instead
turned in an all-action, run-and-gun
third-person shooter that was a
natural fit for the Xbox and its growing
audience of Halo fans.
Et tu, Brute Force?
Excitement for the game had been
high, with much hype surrounding
the game since 2002’s E3 reveal.
Consequently, the game broke Xbox
game sales records in its first month
of release, even eclipsing Halo – but
its critical reception was not quite so
hot. Much of the hype surrounding
the game had honed in on the idea
that each of the four squad members’
abilities could be used to strategically
complement one another’s, to achieve
goals and overcome enemies in
cleverly co-operative ways. It had
seemed as though this would be a
deeply tactical shooter, but the game
that shipped fell short on much of
that promise.
In truth, the squad’s abilities are
largely inconsequential, a much more
skin-deep, even aesthetic choice
that might suit the player’s preferred
approach, while those choices have
little import when it comes to the
gameplay itself. Many reviewers at
the time noted a lack of balance in
the characters, too. In particular, the
two female characters, Hawk and
Flint, have the coolest skills
(cloaking for stealth and a
sniper rifle respectively)
but they also have low
health, so most of the
time you end up keeping
them out of danger,
instead sending the two
boys in to firefights since
they deal most damage and
can soak it up in return. Even
back then, this inequality of the sexes
raised feminist hackles.
The unique angle the game
takes is that your characters are
clones – soldiers that have died,
a lot, their memories rescued
and put into a new version of
themselves. This attempts
to account for your ability to
respawn after death. Not that
we’ve ever really needed that
accounting for. Either way, death
is not the end for the 23rd Special
Forces Unit, aka Brute Force, so long
as you keep picking up its members’
memory chips. In a more sophisticated
narrative, this idea of each clone
being completely expendable might
have had some degree of emotional
weight, with each clone all-too-aware
of their own mortality. But although
the Confederation Republic chiefABOVE Brutus is
the only alien
member of Brute
Force, and he’s a
menacing guy.IN THE
YEAR 2340...
Humans have settled
over 50 star systems, the
‘Known Worlds’, which are
governed and policed by
the Confederation Of Allied
Worlds, for which Brute
Force works.More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 101