As for the implements of mayhem and misery available in Joint Ops, there are definitely a lot of different weapons to toy with. As mentioned earlier, weapon availability depends upon player class, so Medics can’t go hauling along an M249 as part of their standard loadout, nor can any trigger-happy riflemen carry sniper rifles. Each class has its own little unique place in the game, and a well-rounded force will stand a much better chance than a team of snipers or heavy gunners. Rifleman can carry a variety of good primary weapons (specifically, either the M16 or the M4, each with optional integrated grenade launchers, though the MP5 is also available for gamers who just want to be different), but their real meat comes from their anti-armor capability in the form of an AT4 launcher. Gunners are pretty limited in their secondary equipment options, but have the ability to lay down lengthy suppressing fire and do a lot of damage with their selection of heavy machineguns. Things get a little more interesting when moving on to the other three classes though; Engineers are lightly armed, but are indeed the only class capable of effectively taking down enemy aircraft or using a mortar launcher (as mentioned earlier), and can also destroy strategic objectives by placing remote-detonated satchel charges. Medics are also lightly armed, but can heal injured soldiers or actually revive fallen players on the battlefield (provided they haven’t been killed by headshot or falling damage), saving them the trouble of having to spawn all the way back at base. Finally, the self-explanatory sniper is only able to handle sniper rifles and pistols, but interestingly enough they can also carry claymores as secondary equipment to add a little insurance in case some jerk tries to sneak up on their carefully chosen vantage point.

All of these classes have similar weapons availability between the Joint Ops and Rebel teams (the aforementioned M16 or M4 choices available to the rifleman are replaced by the AK-47 or AK-74 on the Rebel team, for example, and the AT4 is replaced with an RPG-9)), so the sides are pretty well balanced To be honest though, I wish a little more specific information was available during gameplay on the different weapons available without requiring me to thumb through the manual, as I commonly found myself trying to remember what the difference was between the three different kinds of sniper rifle or machinegun, or why I would ever want to take an MP5 over the versatile M4/M203 (admittedly, the silenced version of the MP5 has the advantage of not making your direction show up on an enemy’s radar while you’re shooting at him – or, at least, that’s my working theory, so I could be wrong), although one interesting point is that “weight” is factored into your overall loadout, so trying to set yourself up like a modern-day version of the Doom marine will cause you to walk a lot slower, so perhaps there are occasional reasons to choose lighter weapons after all. On another note, one thing some players might find really cool is the way that sniper rifles are actually modeled with incredible realism, requiring players to use the rangefinder on their binoculars to determine the overall metric distance to their intended target, and then use the keyboard to adjust the elevation setting on their rifle manually to compensate. Since all bullets in the game are affected by gravity, it sometimes becomes necessary to blindly aim the crosshair above a target’s head to ensure a hit, but properly adjusting the rifle’s elevation will ensure a clean shot every time.

As for my personal favorite configuration, I tended to lean towards a Medic, armed with an MP5 and a number of hand grenades (which any class can bring along), which suited perfectly with my cowardly “hide in the bushes until somebody runs by, then shoot them in the ass” choice of tactics. On top of that, my ability to heal and revive allies made me a lot of friends really quickly, but my lack of any big offensive punch occasionally ended up in my downfall, especially when the enemy started bringing up armor. Despite its tactical nature, Joint Ops is a very fast-paced, precision kind of game, where even a small hail of bullets can cut your avatar to pieces before you even know where you’re being shot from, and being off by two pixels while aiming can have lethal consequences.. Snipers in particular seemed to rule quite heavily, and Novalogic even acknowledged their superiority with a recent patch that refined the flashy cone that appears on the player’s mini-map every time a sniper fired so they could be tracked down a little easier. Even going carefully through a forest, leaning around trees and trying to grow eyes in the back of your head, it’s still entirely possible to die at a moment’s notice (especially on larger servers), which can lead to obscene amounts of frustration and cursing. Nobody likes to lose. At the same time, the game mechanics promoted a big sense of teamwork and strategic gameplay, but trying to work together with other players can still result in extreme annoyance, and players will still steal vehicles, do stupid crap, and just be annoying in general if it’s at all possible. There isn’t really any easy way around this (though most servers I tried thankfully had friendly fire turned off), but just be aware that Joint Ops definitely is no exception in the universal rule that when other players are entered into the equation, things seem to never have any direction to go but down. Don’t expect a total catastrophe though, as there are still a number of dedicated gamers who have every intention of trying to get the best experience out of the game they can, and those lucky enough to hook up with these players will end up with a much better experience. Joint Ops really is a good tactical title that comes into full bloom when several people start actually co-coordinating.

Graphically, Joint Operations looks every bit as good as Black Hawk Down did, but it also unfortunately doesn’t really look all that much better. First, pixel shaders are put to great effect in rendering some absolutely beautiful water, with the shine from a full moon or sunset causing a reflection that makes for some wonderful screenshots. The game’s vast terrain is greatly detailed, with a huge viewing range and some believable forests, roads, and buildings. Even the explosions are quite adequate, and seeing a chopper get blown out of the sky with a Stinger missile is truly awe-inspiring. Weapon models look particularly detailed from both the first and third person, and even the game’s skies have been subjected to a careful artistic touch – there’s even a full day/night cycle active on every map that will gradually change if a match is allowed to progress long enough. But unfortunately, animation and texture detail is where the game suffers greatly. Even with all of the graphical options jacked, the vehicles and character models looked somewhat unconvincing, and the animations for everything from reloading a weapon to watching somebody go prone look very unsatisfying or just plain jerky, and after being spoiled by the fine, smooth animations of Battlefield: 1942 and even Half-Life (specifically, the slightly over-rated Counter-Strike mod), I was surprised at how unfinished the animations seemed in Joint Ops. The game engine itself was also a little unstable on release, with crashes, graphical errors and odd slowdowns until the development team had a chance to patch it up. Fortunately, as of this writing, the game is running pretty well, and I can’t find any faults with its performance on my system, a XP2500+ with a Radeon 9600 Pro and 512MB of RAM.

Getting into the closure of this article, Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising is an ambitious title to be released in this gaming age (where BF1942/BFV are effectively king), with some great ideas and good implementation. There are a few design problems, the co-op missions are annoyingly limited, and there does not look to be any kind of major modding support over the horizon (though I do hear whisperings of a map editor), but the game is worth a shot for anybody getting sick of the same old grind. Just be prepared for a real challenge, as staying alive can sometimes be just as hard as killing somebody else, if not harder. There’s a really intense experience available that makes you feel like you’re really in the middle of a warzone, with shells and mortars exploding all around and friend and foe alike dying in droves, but expect some bumps and bruises along the way. Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising is at least as good as anything else currently out there, but a few limitations prevent it from going leaps and bounds above to set itself apart. Still, well worth trying.