Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror

Pros

• Great graphics for a game of its era.
• Excellent gameplay in both single and multiplayer modes.
• Runs well on older hardware.

Cons

• Original map design a bit simplistic, third-party maps exist but now harder to find due to the game's age.

Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror is an online multiplayer first-person shooter game that drops players right in the middle of the action in the global fight against terrorism. Although the game is famous for its multiplayer mode and similarity in gameplay to the iconic Counter-Strike lineup, there is also a single player mode which lets you play various campaigns against a PC-controlled enemy.

The game includes a variety of gameplay and graphical elements that make it similar to both Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament, all while being a lot more than just another cheap clone of these games. In fact, when the game was first released in 1999, it was a mod for Unreal Tournament, designed to give people who owned that game new campaigns and challenges. A retail version was released in 2002, which is fully standalone and doesn't require Unreal Tournament to play. It also include a few bug fixes and improvements over the original release, such as new maps. The latest version of the game was released in 2005 and includes several patches, fixes and additional elements that were made by fans and officially included in the release.

The game has all of the elements one may expect from a classic first-person shooter title. Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror received praise when it was released for the quality of the graphics and video elements, as it was based on the newer Unreal engine, considered superior to the one used by Half-Life and Counter-Strike. On the other hand, the game received some criticism for the design of the maps, which some players and reviewers found rather simplistic and having feeling like the action takes place in one big rectangular room due to lack of obstacles and more realistic design elements. The developers have also received slightly negative feedback for the character model design, which initially used skins simply pasted on the same 3D model.

To help overcome these shortcomings, some game fans have created their own maps, character models and skins, patches and bug fixes, as well as many other modifications and improvements for Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror. As this game was released over 18 years ago and is now categorized as a "retro" or "classic" video game, you may need to do a bit of digging online to find working links to download these items, but they're still out there.

The game also comes with an advantage that all older games share: very modest system requirements. It can be played with excellent performance on any PC running Windows 95 or higher, having a 450 MHz CPU, 128 MB of RAM and a video card with at least 16 MB of memory. This makes it perfect for those who want to repurpose an old PC into a retro gaming station.

Pros

• Great graphics for a game of its era.
• Excellent gameplay in both single and multiplayer modes.
• Runs well on older hardware.

Cons

• Original map design a bit simplistic, third-party maps exist but now harder to find due to the game's age.