Graphics and Sound

Old and Busted

Mobile Forces uses the "latest Unreal-engine technology." Similar to id's Quake 3 engine, Epic's Unreal engine is licensed out to companies to use in their own games. Unreal isn't as prolific as Quake 3, but you can see it in games like America's Army. Licensed engine games tend to fall into two categories - great games that you don't realize are based on a game you've played before, and games that aren't much better than a mod. Which is Mobile Forces? Unfortunately, it's the latter.

Much of a game's graphical quality lies in its textures. Good textures can hide low polygon models, while bland textures can make the best models look dull. In Mobile Forces the vast majority of textures are lifeless. The characters are completely forgettable - the Quakeguy has more interesting textures. The same goes for the vehicles and buildings. There are a few good textures in Mobile Forces, namely the posters that decorate the maps. They feature some nice artwork, ranging from old western posters to warning signs.

Vehicular homicide

Commando Warfare

APC Power

On top of bland textures, the models are too big and blocky. The best examples are the vehicles. We can accept the fact that the wheels aren't round, but the rest of the vehicle doesn't need to resemble a Playmobil toy. The Humvee-like vehicle in Mobile Forces isn't nearly as good as its counterpart in Soldier of Fortune II (although you can't drive the SOF2 version). The player models and buildings/maps feel uninspired since they're worse than the original UT models.

False Advertising

Rage touts Mobile Forces' "superb vehicle physics," but I have to disagree. If you've ever played Halo on Xbox, you know what good vehicle physics are in an FPS games (you can't compare physics in a driving game, obviously). Vehicles in this game flip too easily, especially the faster ones. Run into a wall and you're likely to do a couple of flips (the vehicles will always right themselves without hurting passengers). Whenever you're in a collision the winner and loser seems to be picked at random - if you run a tiny dune buggy into a large truck you'd expect the winner to be the truck, but there have been plenty of times when I've seen the dune buggy win. Also, the vehicles like to slide a lot, with no relation to the surface they're driving on or how fast they're going.

Rumbling truck

The Ghetto

Bomb trailer

Mobile Forces' sound effects are pretty weak. The gunfire, explosions, etc. sound more like an 8-bit Nintendo game rather than a modern FPS. Most of the sounds are hollow, and lack low and high frequencies to round them out. Imagine playing a game through AM radio. Not even the rocket launcher or vehicle crashes have good sound effects. The voices are OK since they serve a functional purpose, but the rest of the sound is amateur.