Reviews

• gamedeal user

  May 21, 2014

  Alright. Okay. Hear me out. This game's got some flaws. The movement is kinda clunky and the hit detection is a bit off. BUT What I'm trying to say here is that there's been a little bit of unfair criticism goin' on here. The brunt of it has been on this game's AI. People say it's "bad." But ask yourself this before you count yourself among them. What if this game just features the most advanced enemy morality system ever devised in a video game? What if, that time an enemy shot your teammate then stared at you doing nothing, what if he was simply, at that moment, being overwhelmed with the crushing reality of the fact that he'd just killed a human being? And you shot him in the face, didn't you? You didn't even think about it. You chalked it up to "bad AI." That terrorist had a name, it was Tom. Tom got up this morning, just like you did, put on his beret, kissed his wife and kids, and left for work. His oldest daughter had just gotten into college. It hadn't been the school she'd wanted but it was closer to home and that made her father happy. Tom's son had show-and-tell that day. He was bringing his dad's fatigues in to show off to his friends. He was 8 years old. The terrorist drove to work, just like he had every other day. He said his good mornings to his colleagues, clapping Jim on the back. He knew the man had just become a father. Jim's wife had asked him to come home a little early to take care of their baby girl that day. His mind kept wandering to his two favorite ladies back at home waiting for him. The sun was already bright outside, not a cloud in the sky. Tom was the one who always took care of the plants around the office. He didn't mind; it brought a smile to his face. Just a normal Thursday. They grabbed their bombs and headed out to their routine day of terrorism. Jim and Tom sat around playing cards. Tom couldn't ever seem to win; but he liked the companionable silence. He couldn't know what horror would soon break that silence forever. A green, egg-shaped object landed on Jim's lap. "Jim, what-?" A flash of light and a deafening boom. Jim's arms flung apart, the playing cards flying from his splayed fingers. Tom felt a spray of something warm spatter across his face. He stared into the space where Jim's torso had been, now a mass of ground meat. As he turned, mouth agape, the SWAT team was already entering the room, Jim's other colleagues crumpled at their feet by the door. There had been no screams, no chance to cry out. A gunshot erupted from somewhere, startling Tom. The sudden impact of the recoil from the gun in his hands surprised him. He hadn't even remembered picking the thing up. One of the SWAT officers jerked and toppled to the floor in a heap, one last monosyllable escaping his lips. Tom stood there over the man, mouth slightly open. He'd done this. He'd killed this person. Just moments earlier he had been playing cards. He hadn't meant to shoot the man. He looked down at the rifle in his hands. So heavy. So ugly. Tom dropped the weapon to the floor with a metallic clatter. He turned toward the other officers, raising his hands. "No, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, it just-" He would have said these things. He would have been pushed to the floor and been handcuffed and gone quietly. He would have sat in his prison cell thinking about his family's smiling faces, haunted by the memories of his friends, gone in the blink of an eye one Thursday. He would have done a great many things. But the chance never came. Tom never heard the shots that killed him. He felt the first few rounds, but not the ones after. Everything that he'd ever known slowly drained out of the holes in the back of his head and onto the floor. The scent of his mother's perfume. His baptism. The feeling of his wife's hair against his face. Tom lay half headless on the floor on that sunny Thursday afternoon, surrounded by the twisted figures of his friends, the faint smell of smoke gradually fading from his failing brain. Overall 9/10 game, odd that there's no prone mechanic.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 6, 2014

  "Takedown: Red Sabre is largely unfinished but may have potential if it was finished" As a fan of tactical FPS games such as Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon and Arma I was excited to hear about Takedown: Red Sabre. Unfortunately, the game failed to live upto the hype, which was promised by the developers, as being a realistic tactical FPS. In almost every area of the game it's clear to see that the game was rushed with apparently no time spent whatsoever for polishing or improving the game before it's release. In terms of gameplay, majority of the game is actually there but it's poorly implemented. Enemies range from being completely unaware of you to being deadly accurate. The friendly AI is almost completely lacking, which makes singleplayer completely unenjoyable. However, the game's core mechanics are in fact there, which means that there is a small amount of fun to be had if you choose to play the game with friends. But be aware, there is no way to create private matches and there are no online games available at all at the time of writing this review. If you can live with some 'small' niggles such as the unbelievably slow walking speed, the fact that any height can kill you and the AI the game is playable but it just doesn't live up to what the developers promised. The level design is one of the few aspects of the game that appears to have been properly thought out with levels that feature tight hallways and open spaces which might create a tactical FPS if the game's mechanics were equally polished. The graphics aren't terrible (on low settings) and even lower end machines should be able to handle the game pretty easily. Overall, Takedown: Red Sabre is largely unfinished but might have some potential to live up to it's promises if someone took the time to finish it and give it the polish it desperately needs.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 12, 2014

  I purchased Takedown: Red Sabre back when it was around a dollar, guessing it be a capable, perhaps minimalistic first-person, tactical shooter, qualities I tend to occasionally enjoy and recommend, but in place of an entertaining romp through room clearing and CQC, I instead received an underwelming mix-match of unfinished ideas and interesting concepts. Using Takedown's 'spiritual predecessors,' the Rainbow Six series and SWAT 4 -whose demos are still available online, as the standards for tactical shooters, Red Sabre falls a little short. Starting with the mission select screen, the lack of a planning stage means the player is left to begin the mission blind as to the mission objective, general routes, and overall level design. Yes, several vague objectives are posted in the form of a style-over-substance video overlay, but their possible locations, numbers, and significance are all still left unknown or murky. A realistic estimation of the cloud of combat and the limitations of simple surveillance? Not really, seeing as all three of these aspects are sensible targets of approximation during the inevitable observations that occur prior to sending in tactical teams...Right? A simple, pre-mission map with rough outlines and selectable routes would be wonderful, as would some form of dialogue between squad and commander to answer any lingering mission details. On the topic of missions, the actual mission objectives, considering Red Sabre's apparent tactical roots, are surprizingly bland and simplistic in nature, echoing the desires of a standardized checklist, rather than the actual SWAT operations they wish to emulate. Missing are the dynamic hostage rescues with captive/captor dialogue and potential loss of life due to the explosive nature of such echanges. Even compared to the earlier SWAT series, Takedown's missions are devoid of the atmospheric tension maintained through periodic use of covnversation and ambient comments. Then, when actually playing a mission, several basic capabilities are absent, namely squad manipulation and regular status updates. In place of a context menu or other useful method of commanding your team, a simple hold toggle and ROE wheel are offered, both of which obfuscate the all-essential room clearing, as your team is always behind you, in turn rendering useless the more elaborate levels with their multitude of cover and choke points, as your teammates will never actually take strategic positions or utilize flanks, and complicating simple matters of spacial awareness as our mates tend to vanish when not verbally announcing enemies, their virtual minds dead set on maintaining unnecessary radio silence. The ability to investigate, both physically and visually through your squadmates: rooms, towers, corners, windows, doors, would be a monumental improvement, as would simple formation and movement commands. This brings into light, your squad's strange lack of communication. Yes, the AI announces spotted enemies, but that's seemingly the extent of their communicative ability. Positions, actions, general side-chatter, are all absent, replaced instead with a wall of silence and death. While the latter is more a subset of mood setting and tone, the former two topics of conveyance are important aspects of movement and firing maneuvers, as proper placement of suppression and flanking teams must be confirmed before performance. That, and the awkwardness of having to spin your character around to check their periodic status, when enemies are everpresent, is painful. The movie, Way of the Gun, provides a fun example of firefight communication, as do several article by dslyecxi, a founding member of ARMA's ShacTac. Lastly is a breakdown of the player's ironically standard moveset, given the advances in recent game design and Takedown's desire to be both modern and tactical. The player is limited to a digital lean, without a stepout or means of truly examining corners and bends, two digital stances, without any real cover system, nonexistent damage modeling -foot shots are instakills, and strangely simplified gun mechanics. As stated by its own developer, Red Sabre's crippled lean was intentional, but as demonstrated in RavenShield, fully analog leaning and stance change are possible, and with a reticule present -reticules being a sensible representation of the mental focal point one references when looking around and not the fabricated, game-world only gimmick some make it out to be btw, returning fire is possible so long as the weapon is locked to the view, an equally sensible representation, given SWAT behavior. The application of such a system would allow for full realization of the environment, window avoidance, and improved surveillance, aspects only improved upon by a fluid cover system, one that allows, at least in its most basic form, temporarily full coverage from fire, as shown in Red Orchestra and even Killzone or Perfect Dark, but in a more advanced form, with some manner of controlled cover migration. Exemplified in games like Receiver and the aforementioned Orchestra, gun mechanics can be rather complex without seeming overwhelming, so long as they're presented intuitively. Ammo checking, magazine management, individual component manipulation, bracing have therefore all been implemented in the past and have helped in pulling player skill and concentration away from reflexes and placing them on planning and execution. Along with several prevalent, submitted glitches, involving firing, aiming, and stance freezes, I hope the above mentioned points help illuminate the fact that, while not the horrid abomination some have made it out to be, Takedown: Red Sabre is at its best underdeveloped and at its worst, unfinished, statuses that could effectively be remedied via patches and/or modding. Looking into the history of Red Sabre, it would seem Takedown's developer, Serellan, started a KickStarter to create a certain type of product of a certain calibre, and after raising a fair amount of money -over $220,000, released a product of subpar qualities, even after praising their own past experience and ability. That's just frustrating and unprofessional.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 13, 2014

  "Meet the game that brings back the tactical FPS shooter"... When in development this game promised to bring back the tactical shooter. It brought it back but not in a good way. There are so many problems with this game. It is a buggy mess. Gameplay is: Peak around corner, shoot dumb enemy. Move to next room. Peak around another corner, shoot enemy. Move to next room, peak around corner and get shot. Take control of team mate. Move to next room, crash due to game ruining bug... Haha fun isn't it? Good stuff: -Made me excited when seeing for first time. Bad stuff: -Made me cry when playing for the first time. -Customisation doesn't work. -Bad A.I. -Glitchy mess. -Boring. -Overpriced (devs should pay you to play). -Doesn't work. - I could go on for an hour about how bad this is. - 2/10
• gamedeal user

  Nov 4, 2014

  Do you like ultra hardcore realistic tactical shooters that border on masochistic, giving you the ability to pretend you're a military genius capable of clearing an entire room of enemies with a single bullet ricocheting off walls? Don't get this game, buggy, unresponsive and downright crap. The AI is barely functional and has the incredible ability to spot and kill you through walls. Constantly. Moving a single step even crouched can alert an entire map to your position. Endlessly trawling through dull, drab environments looking for the solitary last enemy alive only to be sniped with a pistol through several brick walls across the map IS NOT FUN. Dropping an Action Man in to a blender and recording it in Slow-Motion is definitely more fun than this. Save your £3.99 for anything else.* *Not literally anything.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 9, 2014

  TakeDown:RedSabre this game promised to bring back tactical shooters and re-invent a now dead genre. Needless to say that this is not the case. lets break down why the game is so bad. Gameplay: Terrible squad and enemy Artificial intelligence. they spend more time shooting at walls than each other. Meaningless customization: Three different armor types and multiple weapons that behaive exactly the same. The enemies can one shot kill you, no matter where they hit you regardless of armor. Interface: very difficult to traverse menus. Lack of visual settings Misc: Good luck setting up multi-player for friends. Now lets look at some other points. The price is currently set at $5.49 CDN, this is still way to much to buy this game for, in fact this is a game that you should not even accept as a gift. I bought 4 copies of this game for $5.49 TOTAL, so that my friends could suffer along with me. and finally let me remind you of the awards section of the store page. (with my own commentary in brackets) Awards FPS Guru - Pax Prime'13 Most Innovative The Most Innovative award is yet another indie title (Step your game up pax....). One of the great things about indie games is they always manage to be unique and bring something new to the table (Not always good). They're able to take the risks that triple A companies aren't. This is a company that has made the decision to skip following the generic shooter genre, let's get rid of levels(Maybe this is why there are only four maps...) , noob tubing, and throw in tactics (if by tactics they mean boredom) and strategy (and by strategy they mean endless buyers remorse) instead. Serellan LLC certainly deserves this award for (Ruining) their tactical shooter, Takedown: Red Sabre. (The name of the game also doubles as a request to valve) Takedown: Red Sabre encourages the player to communicate with their team mates (by yelling at the npcs for walking into walls) and take on each mission differently (in exactly the same fashion) , in their hope to survive. don't expect to be running and gunning down the hallways, because (good luck finding anyone to shoot) there's no respawning(apart from the fact that you turn into team mates after death). It's a (Dis)pleasure to see a return to the tactical shooter and what appears to be a(n) (un)successful return. Once I got my hands on Takedown: Red Sabre it was difficult to stop. (Because the menus wouldent let you.)
• gamedeal user

  Nov 20, 2014

  Fakedown: Red Gaybre is a game where: -You fall half a metre and die of ebola and coronary heart disease -The AI brings a sniper with a scope to a CQB scenario -The terrorists are actually super mutants with super hearing who are angry at their creators 'cause they can sure as hell hear you creeping 3 rooms away -You have 3 speeds of travel;walking,brisk-walking(wtf) and sprinting -They give you a butt-load of SMGs and ARs but only one sniper and shotgun. But who cares 'cause we can't tell the difference -Enemy bullets are like anti-goodguy bullets which will disintegrate your HEAVY armor and straight out kill you. -You have to use task manager to quit the game -You regret buying the game eventhough you got it for free -The pistols look like they have dwarfism +You get trading cards. Dats cool i guess +You have a great time laughing with friends in the training missions but lose them once you start playing the actual missions +You can put flags on your armor. Dats cool 2 i guess +You find the motivation to be successful in life just because you don't want to end up like this game Overall, buy this game as a gift for your mortal enemy and pray they don't do the same to you.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 21, 2014

  fought through the pirate infested upper deck of a cargo ship... lost a man on the way... rescued a hostage from his two captors... secured hostage... AI teammate blows him away seconds later. 10/10 AI knew he was concealing a weapon, I owe that man my life.
• Piggy

  Mar 4, 2023

  :(
• gamedeal user

  Dec 21, 2014

  This game had a lot of promise. The concept was solid. A tactical thinking-man's shooter. The dream come reality in 2014 fell short compared to a game made in 2005, SWAT 4. My biggest complaint is the AI is embarrassing. The enemy AI is oblivious. It never seems to respond to sound or much of the happenings in the environment. Only event that causes them to spring into action is if they catch the player visually in their line-of-sight. Additionally, the animations of enemies are robotic. As for the friendly AI, they are completely brain-dead. There are no real commands! You can tell them to stay and follow. Not look over there! Not stack up on this doorway! Not toss a flashbang in and clear! Nothing! I really wish this game lived up to my expectations, but it didn't. I cannot recommend it. Your time and money would be better spent on its inspirations, SWAT 4 and Rainbow Six.