Joint Task Force E3 2005 Hands-On

Joint Task Force is a contemporary real-time strategy game, in which you take on the role of an international fighting force tasked with destroying a threat to world safety. We got a hands-on demonstration of the game, courtesy of HD Interactive's Jasper Vis, and came away quite impressed by the title.

We're not going to belabor the plot overmuch. Suffice it to say it's going to have you bringing in current weapons and vehicles into battle, such as Blackhawks, Bradley tanks, and, of course, a bunch of infantry. One of the cool things about the conceptual design of the game is that, since you're at the head of a task force that's constantly under international media scrutiny, you'll be rewarded in real time for your actions. Your funding depends on your ability to wage war effectively without alienating the viewers at home, so that you'll earn cash for taking out your enemies, but you'll lose money if you kill civilians or engage in wanton destruction, such as destroying buildings. This cash is apparently your only way to summon new units while in battle, so you'll want to be careful not to upset the viewers at home lest you are unable to bring in fresh troops.

Where the game really gets interesting is in the graphics. Obviously there are a lot of RTS games coming out in the near future that look really nice, but Joint Task Force should be near the top of whatever informal ranking system you devise, as it's simply beautiful, and we're saying that after seeing a mission that took place in a desert. Even with the spartan opportunities for graphical splendor in the middle of a sandstorm, JTF looks amazing, with each unit possessing a level of detail that seems almost wasteful when you zoom in on them. For most gameplay purposes, you won't notice that your choppers have two separately modeled pilots, or a bunch of streaks on the windshield, or exhaust coming out of their vents, or running lights, of all things, simply because you're going to have your view pulled a good ways out. But all of those details are there for the viewing if you zoom in. Likewise, tanks have individual turret gunners that can be activated or pulled back into the vehicle if you're taking hits. There's a dynamic weather system that can bring up rain, sandstorms, and such. Also, enemy infantry are subject to rag-doll deaths, which can send them flying up into the air when they're hit by a tank, then rolling down a hill. Buildings themselves are subject to a real physics engine when they're destroyed, meaning that the roofs will collapse inward and the various pieces of the building will begin spilling out dynamically. There's also no shortage of small, throwaway details that are just cool, such as the fact that when new infantry units are called in they'll arrive on a Blackhawk, then rappel from the chopper down to the ground where you want them. In short, the game looks good--real good.

For our demonstration, Jasper took a small fighting force from a desert into a small town and attempted to take over a dock structure, which was his first objective. (For those of you who are tired of desert-oriented games, fear not, because JTF is going to have environments in South America, Central Asia, and the Balkans as well.) He went over some of the gameplay factors that the team has been working on, such as your ability to take over vehicles in the gameworld. If you manage to kill off the enemies in a vehicle, or find one that's been abandoned, your infantry will be able to enter it and take control of it, a la Command & Conquer: Generals. To demonstrate this, he entered the town, where he found a fork in the road. To prevent enemies from coming up behind us, he sent the units along one path of the branch, and then had an infantry unit take over a bulldozer and park it across the other branch, effectively blocking it off. Your troops can also take over enemy tanks and combat vehicles, but they won't do as much damage in them as the enemies would, due to your troops' unfamiliarity with the controls. More of the graphical details were evident as Jasper maneuvered toward the docks, including a spray of water that came up from a destroyed fire hydrant.

Although we didn't get too familiar with the overall gameplay of JTF, it still seemed like the developers were attempting to tweak the standard formulas of the RTS genre a bit by including a single hero unit that acts as the centerpiece of your combat efforts. You can only deliver reinforcements into an area near your hero, who'll usually be holed up in a tank. Since you'll probably want your hero to be in the thick of things, you'll have to make sure that you can get reinforcements delivered to you without having them be shot down on their way to you from the edge of the map.

We came away from our short demo of Joint Task Force feeling pretty optimistic about the quality of the title. Although it's listed with a realease date in the second quarter of 2006, the single-level demo we were shown already looks and plays like it could be a finished product. Keep an eye on GameSpot for more news on Joint Task Force in the coming months.