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North America

Future Tactics: The Uprising

by Robert Graves - June 18, 2004, 4:30 am EDT

7.5

Turn-based, action-strategy, RPG-me-do.

Future Tactics: The Uprising is a refreshing mix of turn-based strategy, RPG character building, and action-packed entertainment that, while lacking a little polish here and there, is undeniably enjoyable to play. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly why Future Tactics is fun; there are certainly many elements which should contribute to a frustrating overall experience, but it just gets that ”feeling” right. It’s a game with personality, a game with charm, and a game that you’ll find yourself playing through again and again.


To set the scene, sometime in the not-so-far-off future, Earth has been invaded by hordes of aliens, known as the Creatures, who seemingly just arrived one day out of nowhere. Following the death of his father in one ill-fated encounter with these aliens, Low, a young man with an important role in the events to come, and Pepper, Low’s younger sister who wouldn’t look out of place in an Advance Wars title, form the central-ish figures in an ever-growing band of rag-tag survivors determined to rid their lives of the alien menace. If that all sounds a touch thin, it’s because I’m trying hard not to spoil a few of the more interesting twists and turns that the story takes. It’s not Tolkien-esque, and I don’t for a moment think it’s trying to be, but it is a more thought-out affair than you’d normally stumble across in a budget title.


The meat of the game, at least on your first trip through, takes the form of a turn-based system within which your party gets to make their moves before the enemy takes theirs. At the beginning of each character’s turn you are presented with the option to either move or shoot. If you choose to move, a green perimeter circle is placed on the map and your character can move at will within the confines of that circle – jumping onto and climbing over obstacles as required. When you stand still for a moment, a blue circle will also appear within the green one indicating how far you will be able to move again if you decide to stop and take a shot at someone or something from that point. This blue circle is important to keep track of, as you will almost always want to dive out of the way and behind some cover after shooting, and the blue circle gets smaller as you take your shot closer to the edge of the original green circle.


Once you’ve moved yourself into position, give a quick click of the A button and you can choose to fire your weapon. Weapons take on two basic forms – line of sight (your standard gun and blaster type affair) and range (mortar-rounds and rockets). For a line-of sight weapon you are presented with a standard aiming reticule which you have to place over the top of the target you wish to shoot (and yes, upgrades available do include a zoom function for those far-off targets). Once you have the reticule lined up, a touch of the A button will freeze it in place and start a line sweeping across the cross-hair – the idea here is that you stop the two lines as close to dead-centre within the cross-hair as you can for a maximum of 100% (dead-centre) power. It’s a flexible system, in that if you get your original lock slightly out, you can compensate by stopping the lines so that they intersect on the point you actually want to hit. For range weapons, you are given a more radar-like overhead view of the map with a growing/decreasing circle to stop for distance, and a sweeping line for direction. Range weapons are much less accurate overall, but much more widespread in terms of impact area.


Firing is only part of the puzzle, as upon impact with the scenery, your weapons cause all kinds of damage. Craters are literally blasted out, boulders tumble, and buildings, cars, buses, etc. are flung around. Almost everything within the levels can be deformed or literally wiped-out, and careful planning will see you making use of the craters you formed to hide away from the aliens. Much of the strategy in the game comes from the way that the enemy AI works – each of the creatures communicates with the others on the map so that if one can see you, it will pass on your location to all of the others. If you can keep yourself hidden away, you can ambush the aliens without them being able to fight back. A lot of fun can be had by manipulating their behavior – if they can’t see you, they may well take a good guess at where you might be based upon the last reported sighting. You can pop out from behind a rock, take your shot and then disappear again, being careful to stay out of sight while you retreat. When their turn comes, the bad guys will rush your previous position only to be totally flummoxed when you’re not where they thought you were. It should be noted here though, that the Creature AI is not always as it should be. On some levels the hapless foes will just walk right off cliff-edges to their death, or simply leave themselves wide out in the open for you to pick off.


At the end of each character’s turn (which may involve several moves and attacks, depending upon the experience and upgrade level of your character), you are presented with three final options; Rest, Shield, or Heal. Rest just ends your turn and moves on to the next character, Shield places a protective shield around your character which vastly reduces the damage they will take if hit, and Heal regains a little strength for the next turn. To balance these choices out, your shield takes two turns to recharge each time you use it and a character will take vastly increased damage if hit while healing.


The enemies in the game deserve a particularly special mention as they, perhaps more so than the human characters, are delightfully designed and animated. Each of the various Creatures sports a different weapon, from standard gun-toting grunts to plasma-grenade launching Grenadaks. It’s the animation that really brings them to life as they cower from your gun-sight, glance at the weapon ominously humming and powering up on their backs, or celebrate wildly when they take you out.


Mission objectives more often that not take on the form of “wipe out all enemies”, but there is some variety in the form of “get from point A to point B” and “defend structure X” type levels. The maps on which the missions take place are also a pretty mixed bunch, from some wide-open villages to much more focused, almost corridor-like, interiors. The levels have a pretty big impact on the way you play as well – with a tighter map, it’s much more difficult to stay in the shadows and ambush enemies than it is with plenty of space and buildings to work with.


The game also includes a comprehensive, heavily customizable multiplayer mode, which allows you to battle it out with friends. Many of the features in the battle mode are unlocked by completing certain tasks in the one-player story mode, but a handy ‘unlock status’ feature removes the usually frustrating unknown element and at least lets you know what you need to do and what’s left to unlock.


On the negative side, while imbued with lots of character, the graphics are nothing to set your pulse racing. The developers have opted for a bright, cartoony palette with low-poly models and simple textures. The graphics are not poor by any means, and the aliens really do steal the show, but the game is no tour de force either. It’s also clear that a little bit more polish would have gone a long way on the camera. Often glitchy, it’s easy to get it stuck behind walls and tricky to really position as you’d like, especially when trying to look around the whole map. Sonically there is also good and bad news; there are some excellent tracks in the game, but they are all too short and loop too often for comfort. The voice-acting for the human characters is mostly of a high-standard, and the one-liners attributed the Creatures, such as “Stop picking on me!”, can be genuinely funny at times.


Future Tactics: The Uprising arrived with very little fanfare and very little hype. The fact that it has arrived at a budget price will also do little to make the masses aware of its presence. But it is a title that deserves to be recognized as trying to do something new, in trying to mix-up a few ideas and genres. For $20, it’s well worth giving it a try yourself.

Score

Graphics Sound Control Gameplay Lastability Final
6.5 6.5 7.5 8 8 7.5
Graphics
6.5

A bright, cartoony palette mixed with a distinct visual style would be fine if only there weren’t so many glitches and ways to fall through the scenery. It’s the animation, particularly of the Creatures, that really shines. Bonus points for having a widescreen mode as well.

Sound
6.5

Some solid voice-acting and great one-liners are spoiled by the annoying frequency with which the main music tracks loop. It’s a real shame, as with a little more variety and length the tracks could have been classics.

Control
7.5

As complicated as it may sound on paper, controlling the game really is easy. All of the options you have are usually shown on screen in an uncluttered HUD, and it soon becomes second nature to jump around the crater-filled maps firing off head-shots at any poor creature who dares to show its face.

Gameplay
8

An interesting and fresh mix; you’ll spot ideas drawn from several more well-known titles at times. A little more variety in the level-design wouldn’t have gone amiss, though.

Lastability
8

Nineteen Story-mode levels are enough to keep you going for a while, and the game cleverly lets you keep any experience earned even if you fail – meaning that eventually everybody should be able to progress. Once you’ve beaten it, starting again puts a new twist on things with a slight rule change that actually changes the play dynamic a surprising amount. The wealth of options in the multiplayer modes also help to strengthen the package further, with the ‘Unlock Status’ feature proving a very welcome addition to keep the challenges coming.

Final
7.5

Future Tactics: The Uprising has charm, style and a curious mix of gameplay elements which combine to form something a little different to almost anything else out there. While it could maybe have done with a little more polish in certain areas, and is far from perfect, what’s there is more than worthy of a few hours of your gaming time – especially at just $20.

Summary

Pros
  • Above average script and voice-work
  • Genuinely fun to play
  • Innovative mix of styles
  • Some great, if a little repetitive, tunes
Cons
  • Glitchy graphics and occasionally annoying camera
  • Music can get annoying on the 999th loop
  • Sometimes suicidal AI
Review Page 2: Conclusion

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Genre Action
Developer Zed Two
Players1 - 2

Worldwide Releases

na: Future Tactics: The Uprising
Release May 04, 2004
PublisherCrave
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