Introduction to CrossFire

Competence. It is something that's often lacking in free-to-play-games: maybe the overall game is buggy or poorly balanced, maybe the networking code sucks or otherwise you cant find a hosted match. But, Cross Fire is surprisingly rid of those issues. For the lots who don't know this title, Cross Fire is a multi-player, team-based, first person shooter currently in open beta. Its one of the anonymous many online only imported titles from the far east. You actually dash around urban environments, planting and defusing bombs, shooting other people (bloodlessly), and in general reenacting the original Counter Strike mod. It's done well, it's technically sound, plus it even attempts to mix things up fairly. I like these kinds of game. There's teamwork, animosity, and the good old headshot. The question is: does Cross Fire do enough to differentiate itself from the many, many team-based predecessors?


The story is non-existent. Both teams are composed of mercenaries working for unnamed organizations, yet one more evil versus the other, nevertheless they both kill for money. I usually like moral ambiguity in games, but the fact that in Counter Strike you have Terrorists on one side and Counter Terrorists on the other, somehow adds gravity in the situation. That's part of the fun, don't you think so? You wind up feeling that Cross Fire is missing soul, and I get a gut feeling someone's advertising department is responsible. Nobody wants their kids playing as terrorists, and blood could offend a specific sort of backseat gamer.


The controls and game play are familiar to any gaming veteran. You can walk using "WASD" combo, press "E" to defuse bombs, and many others down the line. The game play consists of the typical modes: Team Death Match, Search and Destroy (defuse the bomb), and Elimination, as well as a creative new mode: Ghost Match. Ghost matches pit a team of visible mercenaries against invisible ones, and it's actually really cool fun. Sadly, Ghost mode is not very popular. Another genre standard, buying weapons and gear between rounds at an in-game shop, is Cross Fire's bread and butter. The currency is earned by performance in game and through cold, hard cash in real life, but I haven't spent money and do not feel disadvantaged. I've actually started anticipating that hard-earned semi-automatic machine gun coming my way. Not to mention seeing the term "Revenge!" flash across the screen when you have avenged yourself upon an earlier foe is definitely a nice touch.


The graphics are satisfactory. Nothing exciting here; the game looks nearly the same as the forgotten Counter Strike: Zero Release, but rendered on modern hardware. In-game characters are common too, the movement animations decent, and old-fashioned pre-animated deaths make a look and feel, instead of the physics-backed rag dolls supermarket take for granted. Cross Fire is indeed involving that right after a few rounds you forget it's graphically dated. The sound is similarly standard, guns actually sounds like guns, grenades go boom, and your heart beats when you take damage.


Once you play, you begin to realize Cross Fire is a game designed by the book. Everything from sound to controls and game play are only slightly different from the endless stream of Counter Strike clones. It mostly follows the almost textbook standards from the genre. Nevertheless; let's keep in mind that this is not the finished product. This is an open beta, of which this reviewer doesn't fund the usual shortcomings common in nearly all open betas. Everything about the game is at least "Good," but very little new ground is broken. For just a free-to-play, item-shop supported game, I've been pleased. I look forward to seeing what changes and improvements are made when the beta period ends.