One question always jumps to the front of my mind when playing a budget game: Why sully our gaming libraries with this garbage? Certainly there are exceptions like Katamari Damacy, but usually it makes me shed a tear. In anticipation for Task Force 121 from Groove Games, I actually went out and bought a separate media rack so that the plague of a budget title wouldn’t spread to my other games. Luckily, it really wasn’t that bad.
Task Force 121 puts you in the shoes of a lone, nameless soldier. There is no “Task Force” to speak of. Essentially, it consisted of you dropping in to a terrorist-infested oil derrick with the proviso, “Watch out for those bullets.” Fortunately for the protagonist, the enemies seem to have skipped “Proper terrorist fire-arm wielding” day.
But wait – it’s not just another terrorist-based plot. No, these are Marxist terrorists. Dark-skinned Marxist terrorists! It appears age-old communist political theory has come back, armed with AK47s.
Ludicrous plot aside, the game provides a few minutes of mild fun. Most of the missions revolve around capping said Marxists and stealing their precious keys. Hunting down keys comprises most of mission structures, but the doors to use them in are a puzzle all in their own. The walls are speckled with door designs that don’t so much open as function like modern art, seemingly out of a strange door fetish. Perhaps the level designer merely wanted to infuriate gamers. Perhaps Satan put them there. Either way, there is a frustrating amount of doors that don’t even open. They use the same skin as regular doors, so picking false doors out is impossible.
The graphics are decent, but nothing groundbreaking. Guns look like guns, doors look like doors (regardless of their operability) and black Marxist terrorists look like black Marxist terrorists.
So why play? Well, shooting commies is very satisfying in a 1975-ish way. But seriously, the multiplayer is good fun. It’s straight run-and-gun simplicity, the kind that games seem to be lacking now-a-days. Unfortunately, in its simplicity, the fun quickly burns up, transforming to the ashes of boredom.
Despite all the technical problems, the single-player mode provides a feeling of satisfaction and progress. That is until memories of the storyline make everything absurd again, and the whole experience feels like a big fat waste of time.
The sound, while accurate, is definitely not groundbreaking. Like everything else in the game, it’s passable. Guns firing bear some resemblance to the real-world, as do the rest of the effects.
Overall, Taskforce 121 is perfectly mediocre. It brings absolutely nothing new to the table, and even hurts the reputation of companies that are just in it for the money. One can’t expect much from the company that brought us such blockbusters as Playboy: The Mansion and the less-than-fantastic Pariah. From this writer, the publisher gets negative bonus points for being Canucks. I mean, Canadian game companies are great to see, but these titles hurt everybody, including the children. Only buy this title if you have some sick military fetish requiring you to pick up every cookie-cutter army-shooter available. Other than that, don’t waste your twenty dollars.
1.5 proletariat terrorists out of 5
