Raven Squad

Raven Squad is one of those titles that you know started out with lofty ambitions. Mixing and matching different genre devices, an extensive cast and a modern warfare setting could only come together to form a fantastic game, right? Right?

Unfortunately, no.

Raven Squad aims to combine the best elements of FPS action with the simple strategy of a RTS. You control two squads (which of them is Raven, I wonder?) each comprised of three bulky stereotypes which you can switch between with a simple button press.

Tapping the Y button lets you switch between FPS mode or an overhead view that allows you to direct your squads like some omnipotent field commander. Combining the elements is a good idea, unfortunately each of those elements are rubbish.

It looks pretty here, but looks can be decieving.

In the FPS mode you get to take on the enemy face to face. Literally, because the poor enemy AI will have your enemies running straight at you, ignoring obvious cover, into welcoming gunfire. They don’t react to getting hit either, they just stand around until there’s enough lead in their system to drop them.

Each of the team has two weapons an automatic and a special. It doesn’t matter which automatic gun you use because there’s nothing to set them apart and I’m sure if you reach a certain distance from your enemy these weapons stop having an effect. The special weapons are rarely needed but to sum up – use the bazooka. It just saves time, time which you could use by playing something else.

Switching to the RTS mode escapes the enemies stupidity but also adds to upcoming boredom. From this mode all you have to do point a direction and watch the squad run along, occasionally shooting something dead. It is not a fun time. The game is also ridiculously linear so the overhead view doesn’t so much let you plan a route as just let you watch your team walk down a pathway.

RTS mode comprehensively captures the feeling of boredom

The game mechanics aren’t much better. There’s a checkpoint system that will save after any objective no matter what happens. Once the game saved as objective was about to blow up, every time I reloaded the object exploded and I had to start again, this is how people lose controllers.

If one of your squad goes down you have a limited amount of time to reach them and use what appears to be a magic syringe to cure them of their bullet wound to the face. In some of the boss encounters the entire squad will be taken out by a grenade and you will spend valuable time reviving them only for the boss to throw another grenade. Since your squads AI has the same amount of self-preservation instinct as the enemy they’ll all just wait to get blown up again. I spent more time in boss encounters reviving my team than shooting at the enemy. This is how I lost my controller.

In FPS mode the game looks pretty awful too. Murky backgrounds and bland character models are one thing, but walls made out of 2D corn stalks would have looked bad on the N64 so they’re pretty inexcusable here.

Those really are their names at the bottom

There’s also the voice acting. Sweet god, the voice acting. It’s like a bad parody of 80’s action movies with awful dialogue to boot. The NPC’s have completely impenetrable accents and sound like their voice work was done by someone from the staff kitchen. It’s so bad it’s actually really funny, I’m raising the game score by one because it made me laugh so much. Seriously.

There is an online mode where you and a friend can take control of each squad and play through the game. The downside to that is you have to trick someone on your friend list into buying this game and playing it with you. And even my best friends will only do so much for me.

Lost Gamer Verdict: 2/10