Elite Forces: Unit 77

My first session with Elite Forces: Unit 77 was like a pound of buckshot to the gut. I loved it. It was a DS game, but it wasn’t an RPG, which was refreshing; while technically an “action” game, movement and attack were flavored with real-time strategy ingredients, which reminded me of the early days of Command and Conquer. Even the simple enemy AI was reminiscent of a bygone era of low budgets and surprise hits. And I still stand by the horrible cutscenes that add a layer of unintentional comedy; having already made fun of them in my preview, I will spare them this time around.

Now that I’ve spent more time with Elite Forces, I’ve decided that it delivers more flesh wounds than confirmed kills. They’re impressive flesh wounds, don’t get me wrong: the DS is severely lacking in militant action, I enjoyed the experience, and I’m curious to see a sequel made by a more enlightened studio Abylight. But Elite Forces is like a skeletal mesh around which a great game could be built. It’s a practice run. It’s a theme brought back from the 90s and ported to the DS; a savvy player will feel compelled to critique the experience even as he enjoys it, but could never lose himself in the experience.

I applaud Abylight for using the DS stylus as an input device rather than shoehorn it in as a gimmick. Tap to move, tap to shoot, tap to select special abilities, tap to end lives, it’s perfect. I’d love to see a remake of the original NES Metal Gear games under this kind of format, or a realistic SWAT team simulator in which you can accidentally raid houses full of innocent civilians if your intel is bad, or even some cyberpunk infiltration action painted in shades of black and neon would be nice. As it is, Elite Forces has a lot of potential, but lacks personality.

Most stages are fun because there are a number of ways to go about completing an objective. Frustration did not set in until the notorious “mountain pass” stage, a linear crawl that was one save point short of an enjoyable challenge. Don’t worry, this stage stands alone; most maps are small and varied such that death does not equal frustration.

But is Elite Forces frustrating overall? Yes. No one likes to see an outsider do badly against the establishment. Nobody wants to see Rocky get whooped in the first round. But Elite Forces tries, and even delivers a little bit - and sometimes, that’s enough.

Bonus! Just what is Elite Forces all about, anyway?

I realize now that I was wrong when I said, in my preview, that Elite Forces is “a neoconservative work of art.” It’s still a strange work of art on a limited canvas; I’m not retracting that. It’s the neoconservative part. Unit 77 isn’t a nationalist force fighting foreign terrorists in a carefully constructed, whitewashed “Wag the Dog” style six o’clock news drama. No, it turns out Unit 77 works for the UN. The terrorists that they fight have so many resources and so much manpower that I have to assume they are in the employ of an entire nation - most likely a nation that is militant, right-wing, and nationalist to the core. Therefore, Unit 77 must be a part of the New World Order and the ultra-liberal ideal of erasing national boundaries for the sake of a planet-wide union. In fact, the religious overtones of the Dawn of the Resurrection (the terrorists) bring to mind the US government attacking the Branch Davidians at Waco, or even the bloody siege at Ruby Ridge. This is one for all the conspiracy-heads out there to pick apart. Since there’s no real, solid storyline in Elite Forces, I have to assume it’s all about symbols and deeper meanings because... well, decent script writers aren’t that hard to find, are they?

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