There's something about oil
Back to Baghdad seems much more like an update to Conflict: Desert Storm than a fully fledged sequel, almost like an EA Sports annual release. Virtually nothing has changed from the original game, excusing a few new missions, new weapons and a greatly improved AI system, meaning that most of the flaws within the first game still remain. This would be all well and good if no new problems had been introduced along the way, but unfortunately, this isn't the case.
Weapons of mass distraction
Conflict: Desert Storm II - Back to Baghdad allows you to assume a place in the UN Intervention Force as either a squad of American Delta Force soldiers or a squad of British SAS troopers. The two teams are the same for the most part, with the main variances occurring in the objectives they are required to complete and the accents, of course. Each four man squad consists of a team leader, who''s essentially an all rounder, a sniper, a heavy weapons expert and a demolitions expert.
Missions in Back to Baghdad require you and your team to work together to accomplish a series of horribly linear goals without dying. You can hand out all sorts of orders for your teammates to follow, such as covering you, defending an area, moving to a point and so on. You can also swap between players on the fly should you not trust machines to get the job done. Issuing orders is one of the more intuitive portions of the game, as even the most amateurish players will have the system sussed in a matter of minutes. Limited saves and a somewhat unforgiving checkpoint system lead into making these missions a little longer and harder than they should be. In order to counteract the difficulty increase, you're able to heal any of your wounded men as many times as you want, so basically so long as one man is alive, your entire squad can be brought back, cheapening some of the realism that SCI was looking to achieve.
As was mentioned earlier, AI in Back to Baghdad has been significantly improved for both your teammates and the opposition. The newly enhanced enemy AI provides more interesting firefights, while the teammate AI knows when to fire and when to move, rather than sitting around like a bunch of dummy targets. This would all be great if Back to Baghdad was an exciting game to play, but unfortunately it's a bland lot of crap whacked together to cash in on the success of the last game and the recent war in Iraq. The game engine doesn't really handle in a way that would cause the player an amount of excitement that's significant enough to encourage continuing the gaming experience. The general fighting experience is hampered by a clumsy auto aiming system, which can be defeated by using the first person mode, which is rather poorly implemented. Handling of the vehicles is also quite problematic, with steering being more akin to directing a cement block as opposed to a jeep or a Bradley.
Back to Baghdad isn't a lengthy experience, with only 14 missions (including training) to complete. Multiplayer should add a few extra hours to the experience should you have friends willing to play the game with you, as the co-operative play may help you take your mind off how bad the mechanics of the game generally are.
Grotesque and blocky
Another aspect of Back to Baghdad that gives it that "update rather than sequel" feeling is the visual presentation. The menus have been cleaned up significantly, and are much more intuitive than before, but the overall look of the graphics in the game is horrible. When stacked up against other games this generation, Back to Baghdad fails miserably, due to its poor texturing, bad choice of colour, inconsistent frame rate, bumbling animation, blocky architecture and other dodgy mishaps such as disappearing bodies. On a positive note, Back to Baghdad supports both 60 Hz and widescreen modes, so you can watch the entire horrid presentation at the speed the developers intended it to be played at.
The aural experience of Back to Baghdad is considerably cheap, with the same cheap soundtrack playing throughout the piece, although Xbox owners can play to the sound of their custom soundtracks (The Matrix Reloaded's highway chase sequence does nicely). Voiceovers consist of cheap accents (though a lot better than some efforts we've played recently) and are at a seemingly low volume, making it a little trying to understand the whole story. Finally, those with surround sound systems will be able to utilise their gear, as Back to Baghdad boasts full support for surround sound systems.
Bugger off
Conflict: Desert Storm II - Back to Baghdad is a testament to one of the things that aggravates us most about videogames today - sequels which are bumped out in quick succession to capitalize on the wallets of unsuspecting casual gaming fans or on a current event, such as the ongoing war in Iraq. Perhaps if the original Conflict: Desert Storm were a quality title, we might have looked the other way a bit, but as it stands, Back to Baghdad is a below average effort, and therefore one for die hard fans of the original only - and those fans might have to consider the fact that they're going to be paying $AU99.95 for a game that's almost identical to last years effort.
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