The Outfit Preview - Xbox 360

The Outfit is a third-person squad game set in the backdrop of the war in Europe during World War II. The successful Canadian team Relic Entertainment is currently developing this and Company of Heroes, which has sent gamers into drool frenzy. We shouldn’t expect anything less than the best from the people who brought Homeworld and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War into the world.

The game, an Xbox 360 exclusive, combines loads of squad combat, a good measure of strategy and a dollop of cinematic scenes in between to serve up a platter of strategic destruction. You are given the option of controlling three squad leaders, each with their own skill sets. Through these squad leaders, you control whole squads of soldiers in combat through highly destructible environment, earning points called ‘Field Units’ (FU’s) which can be used to upgrade weaponry, call in vehicles like tanks, build machine gun nests and call in air strikes. The Outfit boasts twelve single-player missions, the ability to play in high-definition (16:9 ratio), Dolby Digital surround sound and online play with Microsoft’s Xbox Live service.

Story

You take control of three badass squad commanders J.D. Tyler, Deuce Williams, and Tommy Mac, as they tear down everything in their 1944 European path to nail rogue German General Hans Von Bleck. Yes, that’s about it. The rest is all mayhem.

Gameplay

There are more World War II games than toothpaste companies in the market. So why care about The Outfit? Well, because rather than making yet-another-uber-realistic-WW2-shooter, Relic have decided to swim against the flow and create an almost B-movie inspired action extravaganza.

Let us get into the boots of our protagonists. First up we have Tommy packing a flamethrower and a machine gun. J.D. is our silent sniper man and Deuce wreaks havoc with his pistol and rocket launcher. In a line, the objective of the game is to earn Field Units, which you collect as you gun down foes. These allow you to upgrade your arsenal, increase reinforcements and call in vehicles and air strikes.

The levels in The Outfit are peppered with vehicles like tractors and trucks, all of which you can use to mow down Nazi scum. In addition to this there is ‘destruction on demand’, which allows you to call in all sorts of tanks, jeeps, anti-tank weapons and air strikes ‘on demand’. Almost everything in the levels can be destroyed, ranging from buildings, vehicles, walls, fences, bunkers, bridges, trees and yes Nazis too.

Multiplayer

The Outfit multiplayer lets you play DeathMatch and cooperative modes on the Xbox Live service with upto eight players. DeathMatch is
available in twelve multiplayer-only maps. Cooperative mode lets you play through the entire campaign with your buddies. The other two available modes are Destruction and Strategic Victory. Destruction mode rewards you with FU’s for blowing up anything on the map, while the Strategic Victory mode has two teams on a map with a number of control towers and 150 command points. Teams have to capture and defend these towers to exhaust the other team’s command points. The first team to reach zero loses.

In a nutshell, The Outfit is a fast paced visually appealing shooter with a range of fresh gameplay experiences, twists and great multiplayer. Publishers THQ have slated the game for a March 2006 release.

Meshach Thomas