Nintendo DS Review: Elite Forces Unit 77

If you remember the forefather days of gaming, where action was dominated by bullets and explosions, a nostalgic tear may temporarily grace your eye when you first play “Elite Forces: Unit 77.” The game attempts to employ a simple terrorist story coupled with 80s throwback game mechanics to peak the interest of seasoned gamers. However, the story, action and gameplay all fall short of delivering a true nostalgic gaming experience.

When terrorist strike by kidnapping several important world leaders, the Elite Forces: Unit 77 is sent in to save the world from potential disaster. You begin the game with a single soldier, but as the game progresses you will lead a team of up to four soldiers all with their own unique skill set. Kendra Chase totes a pistol, but she’s also nifty with the sniper rifle. Dag Hammer is your meathead machine gunner, who gets his kicks with a helicopter blasting bazooka. T. K Richter is your explosives man, who has a part time job driving you from here to there. And, finally, there’s Bill Matic your electrical or electronic device expert.

With this wide assortment of characters, you’d expect Elite Forces to give players some RTS elements. But, the game is as restrictive as it is bland. When you need to open a gate, Bill Matic will show up to join your team. When you need to navigate your way through a sticky mine field, there’s T. K Richter at your service. And, of course, when a helicopter’s flying over head, Dag Hammer will magically show up to lend a hand. It all gets very monotonous after the first board. Most of the time you will find yourself with two soldiers in your squad, while the other two soldiers are waiting for you on the other side of the map. You’ll anticipate what kind of enemy is awaiting you by the type of player you’re given. If Dag Hammer’s around, you know a helicopter won’t be too far off. It’s all very controlled, and the lack of freedom set against an elementary terrorist plot isn’t too appealing.

Whereas, it was fun to just blast away baddies in the 80s, Elite Forces: Unit 77 makes shooting difficult. Since it’s a DS game the developers felt the need to use the stylus as much as possible. Unfortunately, this is to the game’s detriment. The stylus is used to both move and shoot. So, it gets very tedious after a while because instead of shooting you will be moving, while when you expect to move you may be shooting. This problem is only magnified by the enemy respawn system. Every second you move an enemy will respawn to take the place of their fallen comrade. Since you can only shoot when a character is on screen and you tap them with the stylus, this becomes annoying to say the least. You’ll have to pay constant attention to your map on the top screen to see when enemies appear (depicted by red dots) and then tap in that direction. It would have been much easier had shooting been relegated to the L-button and kept movement on the stylus. Or just nixed the stylus all together.

You’ll feel the burden of gameplay even more when a soldier in your squad dies. One solider falls, your sent right back to the start of the board. There are only pre-programmed save points, so you’ll find out quickly how painful this can be.

There’s not much that can be said about a game like this. It falls short on practically all fronts. If only the designers had made the gameplay a little more attractive by limiting the amount of stylus play then maybe some fun could have been drawn from the lackluster story, and confined gaming experience. Hopefully, if a sequel is ever made (let’s cross our fingers that one won’t be) the developers will choose a better gaming engine before diving head first into creating a game is so painful to play.