Wednesday 12 November 2008

Sandstorm for COD

Level name : Sandstorm

Author : Twelfth Hour Games

Date of release : 05 December 2005

Size : 283 115 ko

Number of maps : 3


Website : here


Download link: here

Background information:

A team of level designers and artists spent 4.5 months creating a squad-based, modern military first-person shooter that places the player in the center of the middle-eastern conflict. Developed on top of the award winning Call of Duty engine, Sandstorm spans three massive levels filled with visceral action and sequences inspired by real events. It delivers cinematic pacing and squad based game play in an approachable, pick-up-and-play first-person shooter design. As a United States Marine in charge of a supply convoy heading for the capitol city, you must do whatever it takes to ensure the troops get the supplies they need. Trying to stop you are insurgent forces armed with an array of lethal weaponry and a disregard for human life.

Installation Note:

simple extract the sandstorm files into you COD directory. After, under a sandstorm folder in you COD directory, you will find a Call of Duty and a game of the year folder containing 3 'launch link' copy them on you desktop (regarding the original version of COD you have) and open them choosing properties to modified the path to the folder you have extract them (hope it's clear)...and after just click on the link.

Level Information:


Level 1 on a small trip through the mountain to help civilians your convoi is under enemy attack, objective is to stop them, make the village safe, eliminate reinforcement and also kill all enemies. Then you will go to the end roof in order to establish a communication with the headquarter.











Level 2
takes place in a city under siege from insurgents. The insurgents are using a palace as a base from which to launch attacks against American troops. Behind the palace, in the congested residential district, the insurgents are manufacturing explosives for use in car bomb attacks, and they are also holding an American soldier hostage. The player must work alone and together with her squad mates to clear out the palace, neutralize the bomb equipment, and rescue the hostage.










Level 3 starts in a town where the player and their squad has to locate a captured friendly and recover them. After that they have to meet up with their convoy and proceed to reinforce a division who is under heavy fire at an airport down the road. Upon arriving at the airport the player has to hold the airport until an air strike can help clear the area.






Review:

This one has a new totally fresh approach of modern warfare, people who are studying to become professional actors from the software industry have merge together to create an interesting experience in arround 4 month, the experience is quite short in playtime experience but in my opinion create something quite original that fits particularly well with nowedays information that come from country from the middle east.

Design is a mix of good and unfinished stuff and depend from the energy that was put in every project. In my opinion, the first part is the most finished one even if the game style and gameplay is more classic compare to the other levels that were perhaps a little too ambitous at start and didn't succeed in finishing perfectly their part (2 and 3) but it's still above average.The architecture in someplace look really wonderfull and except the last mission that take place during night (decreasing so the genral layout effect) it's really in someplace beautyfull the custom content is also well manage especially vehicules, texturing and models, for the weapons it's a little less achive...but most of the time through voice acting and on text message(objectives) you really get into it with a catchy feeling...Like I told before the project had a dealine after 4 months and so you will sometime encounter several annoying influence like the enemies talking german and using mp40, the old truck and other things i don't remember...

Gameplay is not what this work was intended for so it's honest well balance but perhaps not enough challenging in combat and too obvious in puzzles (but you could be lost here and there) so the experience will be quite short regarding the download size.

In conlcusion: this is a totally special release that i hope you were not aware of it's defenetly worth the download for the immersing filling it let regarding a war that is not enough known in our country...don't expect too much but i think you will defenetly like it even if let let at the end a filling that the project wasn't push far enough...but it wasn' t the aim


Playtime : 40 min



Rating : A B C D E (83%)


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