Genre : Action
Publisher: Hip Games
Developer: Similis
Release Date: January 4, 2004

Buy 'CT SPECIAL FORCES': Game Boy Advance

CT: Special Forces is the latest budget title for HIP Games and LSP. This side scroller sends the player through four missions to stamp out a terrorist organization, called the Network. I know, scary. It reminded me of Contra and other side scrollers. The title had me reminiscing back to the shooters of old, sometimes much to my chagrin, but more on that later.

The story is that the three elite personnel are involved in destruction of the Network. This is carried out across four missions. This leads the player through a snow-covered mountain, a desert, a jungle, and a war-torn city. The player has to capture, kill, and destroy their way through these four missions. The player fights of hordes of terrorists. I know that the United States likes to send one person out to wipe out forces the size of the population of Jamaica. The plot is mindless, but it is not brought much out to the forefront of the game play, so it is not much of an issue.

The graphics and sounds are average for any Gameboy advance title. The animation of the sprites is smooth. The scenery is well colored. The music is nondescript and unnoticeable. This is good for a low budget title like this. If the music is noticeable, then it is usually bad. There are no surprises here. CT: Special Forces has no glitches in how it executes the game.

Game play for the main part of the game is like all side scrollers. Point and shoot. The controls are not complex either. The difficulty comes from the variety and number of opponents. There is also some jumping tests and fetch something to get past the obstacles. There is nothing surprising there. Sometimes the player can capture a leader, which gives an extra life. There is no scoring in the game either, so it is not important to shoot everything out there.

Weapons are not varied much. The wide choices are a single shot rifle, an automatic rifle, grenades, rockets, and a flame-thrower. The flame-thrower is kind of much in my opinion. It does not have much range and I really did not see the need. I focused mostly on the rifles and grenades. When the character does kneel, he uses a laser sight. It does not effect game play, but it is one of those nice touches in a game.

The hook is the three mini-games. Two of them are very fun. The first one that the player comes across is very annoying. The skydiving mini-game can be summed up as click the button at the right moment at the right spot. It is very fussy. The second mini-game is a first-person sniper game. I loved it. The player has to shoot all of the terrorists while rescuing hostages. The terrorists shoot back and hide. If the player saves all of the hostages, then the player gets an extra life. Lastly, the helicopter mini-game is a blast. It reminds me of the old top-down scroller helicopter games. The player shoots opposing helicopters and drops bombs on the enemy. The last two games are not too difficult or long. The skydiving game is difficult. It drove me nuts. When I say nuts, I mean the having to by a new Gameboy Advance SP because I threw mine into a wall.

There is a multiplayer component allows you to challenge a friend. It is not exciting. Basically a cooperative version of the game.

The worst part of the game is that it has no real save feature. The only way of 'saving' is writing down the codes at the end of each meeting. This was not a good feature. I hated it. How hard is it to have an end of the section save? I love it when a company decides to remake a classic game. I hate it when a company decides to remake a classic bad feature. The codes are given out at the end of each mission, not the end of each stage of the missions. I find it took a too much time to end a mission, especially if the player only has a short time to play. There are secret codes that allow the player to select the main character for each mission. There are no difference between the two main soldiers, so it is not that big of a deal. The codes in order of the missions are: (0202, 1408, 2704, 0108)

CT: Special Forces is a good little mindless shooter title. I would recommend it for those long waits in line or long drives (in the passenger seat please) when a player does not want the difficulty of trying to figure out some puzzle or read any long dialogs. The title is not well suited for a short break where the player is trying to blow a few minutes. Not having a save feature hurts the bathroom playtime. The skydiving mini-game makes it not worth the edgy section of gamers out there. I would not recommend this to anyone very high strung.

Score : 7.0/10