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Are there any good squad-based tactical shooters? I have played Republic Commando, and I like the way it works, but are there any others?

SWAT 4 and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield are both excellent.

Tac shooters are, sadly, a very niche genre. All the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Rainbow Six series
Ghost Recon series
Operation: Flashpoint and its upcoming sequel

Operation: Flashpoint and its upcoming sequel

Forgot that one even though I still regularily play OFP's co-op with a friend. Even though it's close to five years old, no other game surpasses it in its genre. The game system is close to perfect, but it's the mods that have kept it alive.

Quick look at the news archives of OFP.info shows what mods and a mod-friendly game design can do. For those who are unfamiliar with the game, do keep in mind that it was released way back in 2001, but still features flexible combat system that allows you to use all sorts of equipment from cars to tanks and helicopters, huge island-sized maps with plenty units.

Swat 4: The Stechkov Syndicate looks good, PC Gamer gave it a good review.

It should be noted that Rainbow Six: Lockdown is NOT in the spirit of the PC series, and is decidedly sub-par to the rest of the PC games.

Oberleutnant wrote:Forgot that one even though I still regularily play OFP's co-op with a friend. Even though it's close to five years old, no other game surpasses it in its genre. The game system is close to perfect, but it's the mods that have kept it alive.

Quick look at the news archives of OFP.info shows what mods and a mod-friendly game design can do. For those who are unfamiliar with the game, do keep in mind that it was released way back in 2001, but still features flexible combat system that allows you to use all sorts of equipment from cars to tanks and helicopters, huge island-sized maps with plenty units.

Yeah, thats an excellent game. Can't wait for the sequel.

In the original I loved doing the missions in strange ways whenever possible (mostly in the later expansion). It was very open ended while never making the world outside the expected path feel dead.

Plus, the helicopter combat in that game actualy felt one of the best around, even tho the game is not a chopper sim and as such had pretty poor realism when flying. That is because of the unprecedented interactivity with the ground troops.

I downloaded the demo to Raven Shield, and it hated my compy. I also downloaded Operation: Flashpoint, and while it is good, I am looking for more of a squad game, similar to Republic Commando.

Comando293 wrote:I downloaded the demo to Raven Shield, and it hated my compy. I also downloaded Operation: Flashpoint, and while it is good, I am looking for more of a squad game, similar to Republic Commando.

Buh? While it may involve entire platoons and companies, you can still operate almost purely on a squad level if that's your bag.

When I played it, I didn't get the impression that I had much control. Maybe I'm just a n00b.

The system is actualy very very good. It just has a pretty steep learning curve.

mmar wrote:The system is actualy very very good. It just has a pretty steep learning curve.

Thus explaining why I played the first PCGamer demo for an hour and gave up. I suppose now I'll have to give it a whirl.

I looked at the website Oberleutenant provided, but I was just wondering which mods in particular that are or are not featured there are actually pretty good. I guess I'm looking for something like BF2, but a bit less glitchy and less hateful to my computer.

Comando293 wrote:When I played it, I didn't get the impression that I had much control. Maybe I'm just a n00b.

In the first few missions, you don't have any control. They're like tutorials.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:

Comando293 wrote: When I played it, I didn't get the impression that I had much control. Maybe I'm just a n00b.

In the first few missions, you don't have any control. They're like tutorials.

Thats what happened.

Nobody's mentioned the Brothers in Arms games? very good squad based shooter. you have more control and a larger squad than RC.

All the Rainbow Six titles from R3 and earlier are good. R4 (Lockdown) is a piece of shit game which was so universaly hated RSE had to promise the next game would be back to the roots.

Ghost Recon and its add-ons are great for tactical shooters. Don't bother with GR2 though. Its another piece of shit with arcadish feel. And it never even got ported to the PC (the port that was initialy promised was going to be traditional GR, but UbiSoft decided fucking the PC players up the ass without lube would be better then releasing the game they promised).

Darwin wrote:Nobody's mentioned the Brothers in Arms games? very good squad based shooter. you have more control and a larger squad than RC.

They struck me as being just another face-in-the-crowd WW2 shooter. Nothing special. Granted, I've never played them, but that might have something to do with them being console shooters. Ewww.

Brothers in Arms was a steaming pile of shit. I immediately uninstalled it after finding that emptying an entire clip at point blank range into an enemy will do no damage and only cause the enemy to turn around and kill me with a single shot.

The best on the market at the moment:

1 - SWAT 4 and expansion. Easily the best CT games since Rogue Spear adn SWAT 3.
2 - Ghost Recon and expansions. Even several years on, still the most popular game at our LANs.
3 - R6: Rogue Spear. I missed Raven Shield because it was a shit game. Play Rogue Spear for the best EVER CT game you will play.
4 - SWAT 3. A thing of beauty. So many mods, options and gameplay variants.
5 - Raven Shield. Maybe for multiplayer. Maybe. Don't even look at SP.

And if you are hardcore enough and want the BIG games. Operation Flashpoint GotY Edition with Red Hammer and Resistance included. Possibly the best PC game of all time.

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood was a much better game than the original. Get that instead of BiA if you have the option. Lots and lots and lots of tweaking of the gameplay and much more variety to it.

@ Losonti Tokash
One example of an excellent OFP mod: http://koti.mbnet.fi/fdfmod/
No, I'm not promoting it because of its subject. It's extremely well-made and comes with a fuckload of units, missions and maps, covering a period of 1939-2005.

Other excellent addons are those that greatly improve the visual appreance of the game, such as dxdll. An example screenshot of dxdll-enhanced FDFMOD map at dusk: http://ofpc.de/files/team/raptor/images/1.1.06/05.jpg

Comando293 wrote:When I played it, I didn't get the impression that I had much control. Maybe I'm just a n00b.

As others said, it's simply because in the OFP demo you aren't even an NCO. Thus you get bossed around. No other shooter game I know of has as much freedom as OFP. It's so fun when your pre-planned tactics that sounded good on paper often fail in reality (for example, instead of a truckload of soldiers the convoy is escorted by a BMP), so you need to immediately utlize whatever resources you may have at hand. In the fictional situation I used as an example your squad could commandeer a civilian car and you could send few your men to drive few kilometers south where you killed a platoon of Russian soldiers, one of which was carrying anti-tank weaponry, so that you can take care of the unexpected BMP.

Another testament of OFP's flexibility: in one of the campaign missions of the original game I played as a special forces operative whose squad was tasked with the destruction of a Soviet helicopter base. The plan was to sneak behind the enemy lines undetected, plant few charges and get the hell out of there as soon as possible. What did I do when more or less everything went down the drain with the plan? I stole a Soviet attack helicopter and destroyed everything with its weaponry.

OFP has everything. It's GotY Edition comes packed with all the official addons and ridiculously low price tag makes it a vital part of every self-respecting gamer's collection.



If anything, when playing the Republic Commando it felt that I had no control whatsoever. Every event and enemy unit was trigger-activated and the level design was extremely linear.

That helicopter SF mission is actualy an excellent example of the flexibility. You used that tactic, I did it by sending a single operative silently to each site with me doing one personaly, silently killing a few guards and planting explosives and getting to the extraction point before blowing it all to hell. This is with me personally doing just one site while my soldiers did the rest without being pre-scripted to do it. I just gave them orders. I also heard it done with:
- the full squad going from one base to the other planting explosives.
- full squad going Rambo on the enemy.
- the rest of the squad twiddleing their thumbs while you go Rambo
- combined arms with you stealing a helicopter/APC and your squad being support infantry
- etc etc

Full Spectrum Warrior?

Oberleutnant wrote:If anything, when playing the Republic Commando it felt that I had no control whatsoever. Every event and enemy unit was trigger-activated and the level design was extremely linear.

Basically, the whole game is an illusion, but it's a very good one. Plus, it's a great game when you're feeling lazy since your squadmates can do everything you can, only better.