Windows

Joint Operations: Escalation

Kollege Schwerdtel jubiliert: Endlich kann er seine geliebten Panzer fahren! Die machen Spaß, ohne die Balance ins Trudeln zu bringen – die Javelins sorgen dafür. Und Battlefield-Veteranen können nun aus Hubschraubern hechten, ohne im freien Fall merken zu müssen, dass sie im falschen Spiel sind. Die Kevlar-Westen sind sind hingegen ziemlich nutzlos: Für die hat keiner Platz. Entsprechend schert sich bislang niemand um die drei Munitionsarten. Trotzdem erfüllt Escalation alle Anforderungen an ein gelungenes Addon: Zusätzliche Ausstattung bei verbesserter Balance.

Für Zocker des Online-Shooters Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising ist dieses Add-On ein Muss. Viele Neuerungen und sinnvolle Verbesserungen bringen mehr Gameplay-Spaß. Besonders die neuen Fahrzeuge fördern das Teamplay. Dort ist jedoch ein Voice-Chat a la Teamspeak dringend notwendig. Spätestens mit diesem Erweiterungspaket sollten sich auch eingefleischte Battlefield Vietnam Zocker die Konkurrenz mal anschauen.

Although hit detection has been spread to body zones, making it so that a sniper can't shoot your foot and kill you, motion capture isn't as satisfying as ragdoll, especially after Painkiller, Half-Life 2, and CS: Source. You can blow people into the air with explosions, but there isn't the same sense of impact with bullets. In large-scale multiplayer gaming, this kind of thing probably has to suffice in order to keep the system from buckling, but the performance tradeoff leads to infantry combat that's a little underwhelming. All in all, Joint Ops and the Escalation expansion pack to a good job of feeding the BF1942 jones, but I still miss being able to drive and control a vehicle weapon at the same time. This wouldn't be realistic, but it is fun, and perhaps some more allowances need to be made in this regard for Escalation to truly capture the fun factor. The dirt bike is definitely a great example.

Escalation liefert nicht nur frische Fahrzeuge und Schauplätze, Novalogic scheint mit der Erweiterung auch das Camper-Problem in den Griff bekommen zu haben. Im Gegensatz zu früher sind mir deutlich weniger Scharfschützen, die die Basen belagern, untergekommen. Kein Wunder, endlich verziehen die Sniper-Gewehre und man hat im Stehen geringere Trefferchancen. Ansonsten freue ich mich tierisch über die beiden Kampfpanzer. Es ist schon etwas ganz anderes, mit einem fetten T-80 durchs Dickicht zu rollen als mit einem lächerlichen Jeep.

Novalogic vergeet om zichzelf te overtreffen maar levert desalniettemin een erg degelijke uitbreiding af.

Joint Ops: Escalation hones an already solid military shooter to razor-sharp precision. It redeploys gamers to the battlefield jungles of Southeast Asia with more equipment, vehicles, and aircraft, and there has been just enough tweaking to make it as (or maybe more) fun than that other action-packed online combat game, Battlefield 1942.

Joint Operations: Escalation is the fantastic expansion pack to Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising which allows up to 150 gamers to shoot at each other online. It's not just a free-for-all, there are co-op missions that require extensive teamwork. As a shooter you don't have to worry about turn-based combat or real time strategies. Joint Operations: Escalation is all about action.

So if you felt the Typhoon Rising would have been a lot better if it had tanks, than this expansion is exactly what you were looking for. If you are looking for some new maps and weapons to play with, Escalation might be worth looking into. If you want a different experience than you got with the full version of Joint Operations, then you are better off looking elsewhere.

Escalation is worth picking up if you're a Joint Operations fan, even if it's just for keeping up with all the other players. There are already some popular new levels in the expansion that will likely remain mainstays on NovaWorld, NovaLogic's online service, for quite some time. And if you haven't played Typhoon Rising before, Escalation helps make the Joint Operations experience an interesting and engaging one, though be prepared to face a noticeable learning curve and some frustrations at first.

Même si cet add-on ne modifie que très peu le gameplay original (on parlera d'ajustements), il contient assez de nouveautés pour plaire aux amateurs. Quelques nouvelles armes, sept nouveaux véhicules contrôlables, plus de vingt nouvelles cartes, de nouveaux effets graphiques, bref, un contenu suffisamment riche pour combler les nombreux inconditionnels du titre de Novalogic.

Joint Operations Typhoon Rising was very ambitious in its goal, but fell just shy of revolutionary. Joint Operations Escalation not only addresses the problems of the previous game, but also makes extra advancements in the gameplay. But even those advancements have their problems, mainly the maps and motorcycle. Those, however, can easily be fixed with patches and maybe another expansion. All in all, despite its problems, JOE is fun and innovative. It's the closest thing to an actual war gamers can get to date!

Cette première extension vous propose 25 cartes et une avalanche de véhicules surpuissants. Nul doute que vous en aurez pour votre argent, à condition de préférer la conduite de blindés aux combats d'infanteries.

But the fact of the matter is that Joint Operations is still an excellent game without Escalation. The best expansion packs make you feel like you could never go back to playing the plain ol' vanilla pre-expansion game. But that's not the case with Escalation, which isn't bad, but neither is it a must-have. Once I got back onto Black Rock Beach or the Palu Cut Rice Paddies, I didn't really miss the tanks, the new ammo types, the parachutes or, natch, the motorcycles. In fact, one of the worst things you can say about an expansion pack is true of Escalation: it feels optional.

To its credit, Escalation has certainly improved the Joint Ops experience – just not tremendously. The new vehicles are all well and good, and they’re excellently balanced by the targeted missiles available to infantry, but they really could be more fun. The weapons are probably the most disappointing aspect of the package, as it’s unlikely anyone would miss them if they were to be taken away. The new maps and the tweaks to the gameplay dynamic are certainly welcome – choke points are more focused, and the closer objective points eliminate a lot of dull travelling. And as for indoor spawning – frankly that’s worth its weight in gold.