Playing WinBack: The Birth of Cover

how do you like cover-based shooters no judging here but it can get divisive I get why some people can't get behind the genre while I'm personally fine with cover mechanics without sufficiently interesting hooks on top of or alongside the chest high walls it can boil down to a highly advanced whack-a-mole actually that may be an insult to whack-a-mole which at the very least tests reflexes a waiting game without a great demand on skill or strategy to succeed no push to play in interesting or risky ways outside of your own enthusiasm cover mechanics aren't a nil by themselves but become a nil win by themselves like anything else they are a tool one not engaging enough for center stage but perfectly fine as part of a larger set of mechanics like any other feature it had to be new and innovative at some point and this brings us to 1999 s operation win back perhaps one of the first birdperson cover base you as a rather unassuming looking game today rife with bland great boxy environments a stock what about a terrorist takeover of an army base and a forgettable cast of Special Forces and non characters but then the protagonist is named jean-luc cougar which does win some points back setting aside a stay cakes for a moment it hosts an array of features rather novel for a console shooter of its time but the issue of being the first something is you weren't always quite know what to do with it we're going to be playing the ps2 version released in 2001 since it has voice acting well how's it look it won't open I'm certain you can understand my decision there is more to it than that but well let's get you acquainted first the opening cutscenes are pure tripe and I adore them a terrorist cell rolls up a military fortress is ransacked and the start mercilessly gunned down and a man who can't decide between El Presidente and neo takes center stage firing a space laser from there we cut to my favorite character the Secretary of Defense is this report accurate a man not at all qualified for his job but he's rightfully stomped by how ridiculous this whole scenario is and it's his job to process the terrorists demands those demands are simple he wants all invading troops pulled out of his home country of Sarkozy er a nation that can only afford one set of sleeves and no exotic names perhaps the result or cause of a civil war which saw some foreign intervention and besides the globe Ken didn't take any hostages so the situation is dire and with the destruction of the space centre by the laser the satellite has gone missing damn missiles sir so I nipped down the shops to buy a telescope those damn flying lions would hit us before we even got moving I believe it was the crying lion sir Salah cozia is occupied by these people I'd be angry too with that there's only one option left immediately excuse me sir but this is hardly the time or place Scout are pretty hardcore though their training ends with a life by a gunfight well the trainer gets live fire rounds of a rookie though well let's just say there's a reason there aren't that many on the team so the boot licking advisor praises his boss's decision knowing it's always good to throw scare a crying lion the team deploys to take back the golf system satellite the first time I watched these opening scenes I was howling with laughter every line hit me in you the acting is so still it yet delivered by people who cared too much by heart terrorists the introduction of solutions being immediately shot down with so little care they shouldn't even be mentioned the one intentional joke being delivered so poorly and with the exact same cadence as the lines were meant to take seriously and to top it all off the Special Forces team is named scat on the chopper ride over were introduced to said team the laser takes several hours charging between shots so time is of the essence there is no I repeat no margin for error we've already made several they're going to split into two groups get to elevate is a different points of the facility and descent to the control center and as this has explained we scan over several people blind enough to be our protagonist you've likely already noticed and no doubt my narration hasn't already pushed this point of view but the story in win back is a rather throwaway affair some basic motivation to get us going a big gang of robbers stop characters who I feel no shame spoiling exist purely to die to make mistakes feel higher it's enjoyable if you treat you like the b-movie risen laugh don't you worry though because despite that I'll keep taking into to a minimum oh no an arrow we didn't have room for those everybody grabs a shoot and goes bar Co is just a second too late jean-luc touches down somewhere on the outskirts of the fortress a lot of enemies are in his way in walls before them cover is established instantly your permit but a couple of steps before control is revoked a place you were a corner welcome to cover shooting everybody win back had to make sure you knew about it ah it's so quaint nowadays I wonder how many things I've killed just like that so let's talk control since these took some adjusting to win back is good for those with strong opinions on the square button if you hate it prepare to feel justified if you love it you're going to get to spend a lot of time together it's contextually bound to taking cover Malay attacks pressing buttons mounting ladders opening doors failing to open doors [ __ ] rolling in a crouch and shooting when aiming it is an over encumbered little cube that led to death with its dangerous distractions decidedly often this does lead to some clunkiness we've cover the core mechanic you run up to a wall hit square to snap to cover press triangle to lock on hold a shoulder button to aim then mashed where until someone's funeral is a closed casket hardly complex but does take some adjusting to it's not that that's a long sequence of buttons it isn't more the layout of them and the over-reliance on one button leaves it unreliable and frustrating the auto aim is awful but more than necessary the manual aim features shooting that will later be done well by resident evil for a stop and pop laser system here letdown since even a slight flick of the analogue on lower sensitivities will see Shawn lunges on with enough force to KO anyone standing besides him the few times the game puts you into gunfights outside the range of his lock-on on nothing short of nightmarish for this reason alone meanwhile what is amusing about your om is in how balance is attempted lock-on range being weapon dependent jean-luc carries free guns the shotgun packs a punch but has the lowest range the pistol has infinite ammo and a medium reach the mp5 can lay down automatic fire at the greatest distance ammunition has almost survival-horror scarcity especially if you don't come across the ammo pouches to boost your carry capacity without them you get one magazine spare and you lose all leftover ammo in a magazine when you reload so yeah rushing your ammo oh hey thanks the real fun comes in when you realize this lock-on range is only tied to the weapon you use as you lock on so the optimum strategy is locking on with the mp5 before switching over to the pistol when popping those long shots at no cost to accuracy so clunky and half-baked are the words of the day but as for how John Luke feels well he has a subtle heft fitting his baggy pants this is offset by a couple of factors the slow pace of the gameplay with predictable enemies who often fail to remember jean-luc was firing at them he is that forgettable encounters can be run down by waiting for them to have a lapse in memory and then giving them a cruel reminder in the form of a bullet beset buddy only to repeat the process over and over again the predictability goes further than that allowing you to run circles around enemies since they don't lead shots and will fire in spaced out intervals gunfights become matters of timing trying to put your shots between enemies or else waiting for them to reset and goodness I felt the needs away the speed at which John pivots in and out of cover is as long is a Broadway show and roughly as theatrical timing this between enemy gunfire is no small ask and should you stand in the wrong spot jean-luc will roll out of cover and rightfully get shot for it it's a shame the player gets dragged along for the ride being responsible for the [ __ ] and all so is a game on the slower end where nonetheless you can meet your own quickly one curious feature is locational damage both apply to you and enemies with shots to lymon torso doing relatively less damage than a head shot which can tank your health bar in an instant one or two mistakes or - slip ups which are easily made is really all it takes and for all I speak of enemy predictability there to work in tandem with jean-luc slow stodgy stiff control and focus on cover that predictability often breaks which means well they're predictably unpredictable fun right this is aggravated in stages that have less cover in the occasional times the game demands greater precision where's your Luke's dot Enis is not quite up to the task combined with an awful camera lock-on that requires you to work with said camera and the times you're challenged with more aggressive combat it's a very awkward and seemingly unwelcome paced change as unlike those older titles jean-luc now has to emulate he has great difficulty being a mobile threat so we're not so much running but very much gunning our way towards the base proper and my word this Sarkozy and cel really snuck a lot of people in but we do find one of our own catching up with math so far so good it seems everyone was scared and danced fate is very much up in the air but they'll hold out hope but remember we're talking about daredevil down a little fire couldn't stop our fearless leader I hope you're right honestly I didn't expect there to be so many of them yeah dude I was just saying my endgame killcount wound up at 1102 people these crying Lions got clown cars so they hype eachother up and Matt gets a little too excited runs out after all early bird gets the worm and the second Mouse gets the cheese he ran right into the waiting sites of a future boss fight who then gives up his position the game then pisses on Matt's memory pretty much immediately he was running right into an instant death laser you have to turn around and backtrack beyond the start of stage to turn it off this is the one puzzle in attendance besides occasionally finding huge keys which blend into the environment well I mean if you also consider massive backtracking a puzzle then there's free of them find a power box and shoot it to clear the way often it will be placed in awkward locations that nevertheless any normal person simply could reach but Sean Luke well he plays by the rules taking ridiculously circuitous routes to pop off the shot and switch off the death traps in and off themselves these are a tedious element occasionally they are an actual challenge requiring you to pop off a shot quickly often running into the path of an oncoming laser to get a position for a clean hit which weaves on loops lost aim and pissed camera well it's a terrifying prospect doing most anything under duress in win back is not a fun time particularly when auto aim is off the table when it is just a case of actually finding a power box to progress well often the game lacks faith you can do that and you'll just be pointed to the solution with a pull away camera which has no shame about flying through walls other times you'll need to crouch walk under lasers and you know what I take it back this is far more terrifying than that other thing that was terrifying if you don't have Jordan Luke facing exactly forwards good to go and limber he may get a sudden leg cramp and that mess up in timing will kill you remember to stretch before omission kids it's vital so lasers present two possible challenges plus one bit of fluff luckily that hole going under lasers thing only happen a handful of times and I'm halfway through two toughest version of it right now never mind now I'm less than a quarter of the way through it seeing as I need to backtrack and then do it again to return to Matt for a moment his death wasn't totally in vain his death was teaching the player something you see is tradition in cover-based shooters that cover goes before enemies but that doesn't mean they'll come out while you're at the cover no no these guys are gonna wait until you're out in the open they will ambush you and then you have to peg it backwards respond quickly with these awful controls and unresponsive camera you will get ambushed you will get flanked you will get killed wind back is genuinely difficult and much of it does come down to trial and error where enemies will come from gunfights in very open environments learning the weird semi predictable way enemies attack and how to account for when they are not predictable we have seen all but one thing wind back has laser puzzles ambushes and skirmishes with small groups of enemies repetitive to the point that when you die well when I die I just get bored and I end up trying to brute force my way back to where I was and that recklessness got me killed even more so I go back to playing methodically slowly tediously and so often a way to just get jumped anyway and so often cover is in no way place to even allow you to approach gunfights comfortably it's something about went back I both hate and appreciate the enemies are stupid but they're positioning whether fruit incompetence on design or otherwise is brutally effective often covering tons of potential angles and approaches and punishing bad positioning it's oddly intelligent more credit than I'd usually give these dirty socks and it's not like they can lead a shot so these turrets are basically nothing god we must have stepped into their Civil War to stop them from embarrassing themselves oh wait we didn't learn to lead Iver I love that med get right out in front of that turret these things can take away your entire health bar in an instant that right there is BAE and well I'm not stupid enough to fall for that so when we go you actually came through the front door then why am I being ambushed The Crying lines come with their own budget Foxhound okay okay I'm not going to be reductive and say it's just that but they do follow a similar formula as Metal Gear Solid traded stealth for action in these segments occasionally merging the two their encounters fluctuate between aggressive pressuring you to move from cover and fight them with dodging in well-timed shots too sedentary playing you clip away at them at little danger to yourself often an uncomfortable merger of the two at times supplemented with normal enemies died around to push you out of cover or force quick decisive movements and these are a bugger to pull off at the best of times let alone when there is a boss present these bosses want you to take on a very different rhythm of combat this is alongside the fact that the bosses are Hardy bastards and often decidedly unfair like yeah let's have my starting cover next to a lethal dose of explosive barrels or help let's just open a fight with me getting shot the boss fights made me into a racist I hate Sarkozy ins you may have been tipped off earlier when I said dirty socks but it was the boss fights that brought me to that point that said I do love Leon here just found in a tiny side room in an office with some destructible crates this is a Spartan arena forfeiting a man who put all his stock in his wardrobe but God a fast firing shotgun boss that doesn't need to reload flanked by two Randy's and in a room where the cover is tiny or temporary yeah we'll be back here in a moment cover by shooters have an awkward time with bosses isn't a genre which lends itself cities form of encounters but win back doesn't yet have an established formula to look back on for ideas or things to build upon instead goes for bosses which punish the standard rhythm of gameplay but it does so inconsistently it tests skills you will have built up but in an alien isolated fashion besides that they are just frustrating the wiggle room you have to fight back is not only small but lacks tells the bosses just pick which moves to use without order or sense they want you to play offensively in a way that jean-luc is ill-equipped to handle what's more frustrating is how many of them feel redundant using standard firearms and having move sets consisting of shoot spray and grenade so it should come down to the arenas to vary up these encounters but sadly for the most part they are boxy rooms with minimal cover not only are the bosses superfluous but often lack character okay never mind they don't lack for character I suppose I should say they lack impact many don't add to the story they burst in be fit and be gone never having any further effects we've maybe one or two great exceptions another small bug is still present in regular enemies but exacerbated by the nature of boss fights is in how invincibility and hit stun is handled after getting hit you have a scant few moments of invulnerability to collect yourself the same is true of bosses so you can't just hit stun them to death perfectly fair the issue comes in how inconsistently it triggers inconsistency is a common word today for a reason sometimes you can get off a small string of shots stealing a goodly amount of damage other times the ref blows the whistle immediately get running for cover because they are going to abuse that leniency the same way you would this is a factor that is likely based on locational damage different animations for different parts of the body which handle your mercy invincibility differently I say likely due to the fact I don't have much control over where I hit them it's not truly random but with the level of input granted and the speed bosses move at it is functionally so I'm never manual aiming at one of these lads without good reason I am NOT that audacious this is one of those issues there is more demonstrable in multiplayer but at least there it was amusing me and a few friends had far more fun than expected playing the incredibly limited multiplayer suite at the expense of the game mostly every scuffled evolved into the ranged equivalent of a slap fight with mercy invincibility lasting so long we would just get up and plug the other guy while they couldn't fight back turning everything into a hilarious awkward battle of attrition and with that if you want to play as the unlockable characters in multiplayer never round his quarter or I'll [ __ ] kill you and trust me you do you have to be bot mode challenge maps to get them bot mode features multiplayer BOTS with human level health insane accuracy super aggression and it routinely puts you alone against the team of these terminators it becomes a bit of a mountain to climb the other half at a time it does give you a team of bots and well they just win for me I feel accomplished if I contribute one kill but then after that it turns around makes you go it alone and well it wants you to go and get your win back anyway as Lyla dies she thinks fondly of her favorite gesture we're now in the second area of operation win back the officers and jean-luc is treading carefully right into an ambush hey John Luke you trying to be a target or what yeah good going Sean Matt's corpse is spinning on the ground Rick bloody well would be if you or the console had dedicated it to memory grunted the near-death experience did jog his and so we catch Jacob good ones before we can ask what the heck that means another ambush pins us down and Jake urges us on ahead after a scant few steps down a hallway enemies emerge from the same door we used so Jake better be dead of why's there's no excuse we fight our way to the sewers and Jake having no one in his way to stop him easily catches up all we need now is take this elevator down to the control center and win back the Gulf Stream I think they've changed the code oh [ __ ] I think you're right John Luke but luckily Thomas is here and he doesn't trust you and Luke he has to test it himself yes they've changed it alright realising he's right he runs off like an excitable child to go and fetch the code from upstairs is at this point I'd no longer be joking and saying that yes this is the worst Special Forces team possible comprised of corpses children and morons in order of who deserves the least respect now this is going to sound odd because the gameplay hasn't changed whatsoever but the offices is where I would say win back really begins I'm going to speed through the story beats for a moment with reason of course we leave Jake on guard duty to go upstairs and check on Tom we find him listening in on Cecil talking about planting bombs all over the facility so we have to track down the explosives in doing so we go back down to the sewer to find Lisa has arrived besides I promised mom I wouldn't die until she saw me in my wedding dress well at least we know one of us will make it out alive just what is that supposed to mean following some like banter the news of the explosive gives Jake an excuse to dump guard duty on Lisa and bugger off naturally jean-luc is off upstairs to check on him though this leads us back to Tom so we can just tell him we haven't found all the bombs yet then what are you doing here padding what else this isn't the entirety of the office segment but we have already been doing so much running back and forth is hilarious I put up a long play video on a raw footage channel it's called chat porn industry there's a story behind that name but never mind that if curious go put it on preferably on fast-forward just watch how surreal navigating this space is that recordings from a second playthrough where I'm mostly always going in the right direction meaning jean-luc looks like a [ __ ] psychic while we do have a map function which displays our end goal it's the in-between that's the bugger the route changes with every back-and-forth meaning we take the most secure s routes to get from A to B and back again as lasers doors locking and unlocking and boxes tasks us we're taking mildly different paths through the exact same rooms there are 32 stages but these 32 stages take place over four areas the miniscule plot putting itself on hold repeatedly as we have to cross the same foyer eight times that is not an exact number but you know what a is fine we take side rooms and break windows to bust our way into a bathroom rigged to blow it's two down my first playthrough was slowed down a ton just by the sheer guesswork of which exit works this time hey get back here I need directions and we walk into this random room and then it's time to talk about the Nintendo 64 version gameplay wise it is essentially the same enemies are a bit stupider with worse eyesight and lowered aggression but on the other hand the system lacked the power to track their ammo so they never need to reload graphically it is lower fidelity but the lighting more vibrant alongside grittier textures along with a fog that those socks used to sneak in hey that probably goes some way to explaining their eyesight the ps2 version looks a lot cleaner but it's muted look is comparatively dull there's a bit more of a depressing vibe and on a cross a note the sewer water goes from brown on n64 to blue on ps2 making jean-loup six generation trek a bit less painful and fuss less meaningful I should bring up that I understand the use of recycled content what with the backtracking and all it pads out the runtime while accounting for cartridge space it's an n64 title working within its limitations and to its credit it does attempt to remix these rooms as much as it can on each visit I would be cruel dismissive and likely outright wrong to call it laziness this all said not to sound callous but I don't care about all that because I want to talk about the cutscenes I mentioned the n64 version lacked voice acting another space constraint worked around some Cetus as a bonus but I am NOT one of those people because this story is trite without the cheesy audio it just loses that little comedic flourish jean-luc is a nonentity without his shoddy acting without it he's boring if a little dim-witted and his blocky of presentation makes him look somewhere between tough and a realistic Vives ps2 jean-luc meanwhile has rounded almost baby-faced features alongside a wimpish idiotic yes slightly too enthusiastic delivery which renders him and almost Counterterrorism mr. bean so innocent he likely doesn't realize people die when he shoots them bad voice-acting enhances not only jean-luc but this whole experience this'll said the writing on Nintendo was marginally better the dialogue more punchy and by its own merits more characterful which tells me there was a rewrite when voice actors came in and needed lines to enact and they small something got lost along the way for instance I love the ass was censored but bastard is fine I would love to have heard a censor beep and a laugh track and in 1999 jean-luc responds to learning two of his allies are pinned down with cripes which we don't get to hear in further losses to win back the intro on ps2 is far longer expanding on the Sarkozy and take over at Western in pretty much needless detail and my favorite cutscene with the Secretary of Defense is an invention of this port which on the one hand is fine from a storytelling perspective everything here is redundant everything you need to know is covered in a helicopter ride but as a tone setter where you get to set your expectations of the scat team when you get to see what shambles their superiors are it heightens what follows on top of this there are minor things such as the scene where Jean got ambushed the n64 presents him as cautious using cover to approach a corner before Jake sprung into action as opposed to the ps2 where he is blissfully walking into the line of fire and then Jake's follow-up line about Matt is more respectful it's untrue because he died but hey a lot of scenes are one-to-one recreations but with worst cinematography and writing from the original sans the pacing of scenes due to voice acting they had to have been making jean-luc stupider on purpose to play up that this is an unintentional storm of comedy and this all brings me back to Leon who without an actor to read his line verbatim was grammatically correct alright so this is for my money one of the hardest bosses in the game if you place him in multiplayer his shotgun has infinite ammo it's ridiculous okay so now to qualify me saying he's the hardest boss fight in the game I wasn't being jokey ironic that was the luckiest [ __ ] ever something was on my side during that stream okay it looks like we got them all alright well let's go get those codes ah well never mind how's Tom doing badly luckily he served his purpose we've code in mind we nip off but one final trip downstairs once there everyone is about to take the lift wait I'm going down alone first but it's John Luke's paranoia kicks up and he volunteers to go it alone seems like the worst way to handle paranoia in this situation but hey we need to keep contriving reasons we can't have allies which considering multiplayer yeah fair enough downstairs Shawn Luke is validated well this is a surprise he's a tricky bugger of a boss but eventually I get the right series of stopping pops to make the boss drop but not before he very slowly walks over to the elevator so the bad news is Tom died for nothing the good news is the runtime just got extended the team decides to reconvene with the second squad and take the free elevator or elsewhere on the base well there's no sense in crying over spilled milk that spilled blood Lisa on the way out the team is being followed the party urges Jean Loup to move but realize they should let him take Howie's aggression on Tom Scott oh I didn't feel like fighting them well now the party is split so that saves time writing more scenes and we emerge out into the third area of the game and the first third of the game is a giant shaggy dog story there isn't much to say about the factory in terms of actual new content shoot enemies shoot boxes shoot power cables the difficulty increases as the ratio of enemy encounters to work or cover gets wonky at the level of backtracking decreases but we're now spending our time sneaking through labyrinthine warehouses made up of near random boxes catwalks ladders and conveyor belts and a heightened level of verticality gives enemies way more angles to shoot our exposed us but we did finally get a noticeable change in music throughout the ground and office areas we've had a slow-paced MIDI ditty which while repetitive is fitting enough to easily ignore well it's been replaced this music isn't unfamiliar it's used in some cutscenes where the tension is ratcheted up well again inconsistently it's more just used with little rhyme or reason so it's been promoted to gameplay duty for this area which well we're going to be hearing it for an hour or two actually that isn't entirely true wind back also features dynamic music it is crude and winds up irritating but it does mean you have a form of music selection the button to change tracks just happens to be getting shot on yellow and red health the track changes not subtly mind it switches to an entirely separate rather panicked sounding piece there's a sort of beauty in how misguided these tracks are healing is done via finding med kits sprinkled and hidden throughout stages with a degree of rarity you'll go a gun fight or two before finding one not so frequent that you can play fast and loose without knowing what you're doing and not so rare it feels like there's no hope for recovery in this regard a panic track ratchets up the tension well the tracks flows off as you find a med kit musically emulating a feeling of relief by bringing in a karma track well it used to what is funny is that well with low health is sensible to play conservatively weighing up gunfights and making less risky maneuvers the track can still work by making more risk-averse play still feel more threatening or well it can wind up being the most intense boredom ever as gunfights become slower more meticulous Affairs set to a track reminding you that you're doing rather poorly huh you know this isn't the first time this has happened the psychoshy ins are way too comfortable standing right next to explosives I'm willing to accept they slipped in and turn the defense systems against us but this is some takeshi's Castle [ __ ] the goons rig the rooms are blow and started patrolling it I suppose it is a simple lift silly way to enforce the stealth segments or at the very least tried to I think if I stand at the right spot in this room I could detonate all of these and not die or I could open the door try and turn around quickly and shoot the box from outside let's try that plan first because the door doesn't close instantly but just very fun windbag exists in a nebulous in-between of big quotes realistic end quotes deadly tactical gameplay with the story serious the stakes respected and death of many cast members and later on we're going to get a villain with tragic motivations but on the other end of the spectrum that gameplay has an arc ad style scoring system gimmick room such as this and traps which operate on video game logic where anyone who could do a pull-up or crawl would completely trouts this plot then we have a static silliness character designs fluctuate Shaun Luke is a little baby-faced but sure special forces trooper why not then we got Mike and Cecil and basically every boss why is the boss with a flamethrower named sergeant Thunder there is a murder mystery subplot I can't help but chuckle at partway through the factory area we find the body of Steve the actor tries but can't find it in him to be too beaten up and he suspects foul play and while Shaun isn't wrong his reasoning is shot several times from behind just like tom the hell is doing this I wonder the humor doesn't feel intentional but how could it not be how could it not be if you treat win back as a naked gun style spin on Metal Gear Solid it just works way too well so here's my interpretation so far the Secretary of Defense or an opportunity to get the worst Special Forces team in his employ killed and knocked off the budget he sends them in fast before the army can turn up he was willing to do this in the face of international tragedy mind the team is sent in and true to form they fumble around the base wandering aimlessly they luck out and solve stupid puzzles because stupid is their wavelength and through sheer dumb luck jean-luc is cutting a swath through the crying Lions as his allies just managed to not get noticed or die I mean it's a plan only an idiot could come up with and the Secretary of Defense is if nothing else an idiot and when we get down to it I adore this strange middle ground this casual acceptance of video game II elements and contrivance says while more semi-realistic fare is creeping in as time goes on in triple-a games particularly shoot has got more realistic contrivances like boss fights impossible knee high obstacles and nonsensical rooms have been phased out for more believable down-to-earth and cohesive settings or else in comedy games these elements off border for riffing on in a form of comedy lower than references I mean hey did you laugh at my naked gun take a couple of paragraphs back jean-luc meanwhile will walk into a room filled with explosive crates and enemies who will shoot on sight killing themselves their friends and maybe jean-luc and he doesn't question this bizarre own reality and don't at me saying is to defend their boss and they're willing to die for the cause even if it's a possibly fair point and going back to an older point when the camera is willing to fly through walls to give away puzzle solutions there's no care in maintaining the illusion this is a video game get going and shoot those bad guys I mean I mentioned how labyrinthine these factories are it is subtle insanity masquerading as reality still we're slowly bleeding our way through the factory closing in on the elevator our only run-ins in this chapter will with Steve's corpse and finding Keef injured at the hands of Duke so naturally the two of them bow out of the mission the rest of the team was ahead of Jean Luc and well with the sheer number of people we've killed I can only assume they knew a shortcut and forgot to tell him but never mind let's get down Baron wait what's this we are ready to fire Oh oh dear oh oh I've got a bad feeling about this did they just fire the satellite again so remember when our CEO Dan told us there was no margin for error and well how every end of level screen was keeping time and the fact that there are restoring of many time challenges spread it into the stages well these are subtle and not-so-subtle hints that the laser being ready to fire again in several hours was not an empty threat it didn't just exist for the flop operation when back is a large time mission you need to reach the final stretch of the game within two hours and 30 minutes and I was a bit behind schedule and was still a few hours of game time left I am now locked into the bad ending path the crying lines hit another target which fries the satellite breaking it the SoCs demands are not met and a lot of people died for it to happen now it's time I ruined more than just your day like save your life then leverage is gone and all that remains is jean-luc taking down Cecil regardless of the reasons some things are just wrong I didn't think you would understand however my principles compelled me to try and explain it to you you're damn right I don't understand you've reached the end of the line here put that thing away you won't need it I know when the Bell Tolls and can have coal mine ops to take his own life when confronting everyone is pretty much dead so yeah you get on the bad path and you've got a lengthy death march down a sad Road I am truly thankful to those who've watched to this point save for one bending of the truth and even then it was something I believed at the time I haven't said anything I feel to be incorrect I also know there's another side to win back it took a second play fruits are properly realized a part of the game I'm casting a shadow on so allow me to reintroduce because now I'm bringing in that after mention second playthrough where I was gunning it the time splits were pretty significant my first run ended at six hours on the endgame clock the second two hours and thirty minutes yeah I smashed that requirement I called a credits the final stretch boys fascinating about wind back was how much the second playthrough thoroughly changed the way I understood the gameplay I was wrong that the bosses were challenging a different float it was challenging one it took a whole playthrough to realize I was being melded for it was a modern assumption on my part that I am obviously at fault for that as a cover based shooter I should be playing in a defensive fashion and fully engaging with the cover system to succeed but the cover system is in actuality and addendum it had to be used only when necessary the plot demanded no margin for error and guess what waiting behind walls is airing on the side of court I grew to appreciate this contradiction let's call it slow and steady will not win this race the ticking clock is presented to me at the end of each stage it's a reminder you want to stop the terrorists take a risk or to quickly evaluate gunfights to figure out whether you should duck and cover or decide saab defense and go all in I realized certain stages were actually well laid out to let you divide and conquer if you go for it John Luke's lock on and mobility suffer against groups so there are blind spots and angles to allow you to pick off enemies one by one in these moments the stodgy controls actually work and you feel clever for calmly and coolly trouncing an enemy squad bran if this sort of design is actually pretty rare which is a shame since it made the few battles it turned up into many puzzles rewarding clever use of the environment and there's a few eat wallace win back understood cover back in 1999 it's not the main focus i mistook it for the main focus and guess what i got the bad ending for it but the moment I realized the cover was just a sideshow partly a trap even I started succeeding kind of we'll talk about that the way I viewed enemy predictability changed along with this it was no longer about accounting for story movement and a monotony of cover it was there to allow me to get in on enemies closing the gap and choosing the optimal time to fight back or bear yet ignore them entirely there are segments where you can just rush past all and sundry it looks ridiculous but regardless it was cool to pull off saves time as well alongside some little tricks like one tapping enemies to stumble them in my first playthrough I killed 1,100 people in my second I brought that number down to 700 I skipped 400 enemies and got 200,000 more points still with that time differential I can hardly be surprised I also really awaited how I used cover mechanically and there is a tragedy with the whole thing in that actually using the provided stick to wall mechanics is a hindrance simply crouching behind chest I walls and popping up is far faster and safer than engaging with the actual intended mechanic with no downsides there are some enemies who are set to charge and harass during some encounters often pulling a knife to do a terrible amount of damage I hated them on my first playthru seeing them as a dodgy obstruction getting used to the controls and adjusting my play style made them far more manageable these are enemies that turn cover against you so with all of this in mind is when back actually good no it's still a frustrating tedious and repetitive experience the difficulty was actually heightened though part of that was down to me restarting stages over and over again to get good runs and learning that often times making the same moves with near identical timing well sometimes it will work sometimes it won't predictably unpredictable don't get me wrong it's a lot more rewarding and frenetic to play this way a lot of control goes back into your hands and I appreciate this way of approaching cover I ended up appreciating it in a similar but less a way that I did with vanquish the cover is present but discouraged by external pressures and the boss says I had a far easier time with knowing how to approach them and having far greater mastery over how John Luke moves naturally allowed me to pull off a lot of why I did but this obviously doesn't fix their see meanness and there is always a degree of frustration they still don't feel like perfect fits for the game they're in what's curious is that I felt good for skillful players John Luke not because I was mastering a move set that takes time to get the most out of but because I was somehow getting this simple move set to feel far faster than it was ever supposed to go I wasn't learning John Luke I was unlearning better systems from other games for the sake of this one and that may sound like a really vague splitting of hairs and that's because this way is playing well was rewarding but felt Hollow and contrary a lot of the time and that's the best way I can put into words the experience of mastering this lad well back to my first playthrough for a second seeing as I'm already late this final factory stage has a big optional trek a ton of turrets and a small battalion is dug in to defend an ammo pouch sometimes you just have to die for these things with that done let's start merging the two playthroughs we're finally descending into the belly of the beast and on the way we find an injured law just resting in a pool of blood well it's a good thing tom's blood was less transparent or no it was a waste anyway law tells us the rest of the squad is already up ahead we're sent down the freight elevator as enemies close in and law makes a last stand so now we're in the final zone and it's a bit of a bastard a giant layered maze that in its several stages will see us running back and forth opening doors climbing ladders and moving cargo trying to open away to one final elevator down to the control room I can't say this stage introduces anything new mind moving cargo is more like revealing a corridor in a nest of corridors again it ups the difficulty by upping the enemies and lowering the walls I mean look at this on my first playthrough this room [ __ ] with me I needed a total perception shift before I could even accept it but from beginning to end it has been this and this is more than repetition this is short-term memory problems it's not just that it's small skirmishes and laser puzzles ad nauseam in a maze with backtracking it's they keeps pulling the same tricks enemies dropped in behind you enemies coming at you after you run past cover so you're exposed it is a total one-trick pony so much that I am repeating an earlier point again but this is a new point because I said it hours later it does work with my point that this exists on the crossroads of Arcadian more modern design where arcade games challenge and score one set of skills over and over but now these skills are applied to tactical cover based shooting it's an odd flavor but an interesting one and well I was lost for near an hour here the first time I played I can see the final point but where to go to open it is the bugger of it all so let's talk about my favourite gun I go into a room slowly move a bridge into place to cross it to the door I need halfway across a cutscene stops me dead as a bloke runs in and stops the bridge with me on it this wasted his life and my time as I move the bridge back into place oh yeah rocket launches I never talked about the rocket launchers they kind of suck well they kind of suck until you realize wait this just lets me skip tart segments this is a big sequence break so yeah the that's what the Rockettes good for so what's the story here well we've run into a large man named gunt and kill him we lay a run into Mike and dome he was separated from Jake and Lisa who are currently in the void okay let's check yep that's true one in 64 that's Canon John Luke everything looks clear over here John can only be disappointed and then Banderas is killed he greets death with as much dignity as anyone sucks so the palms divert a bit more from here in the bad ending Jake and Lisa are found dead down here in the good ending this room is inhabited by a ninja and bringing the mood down Lisa has been kidnapped are you Sean mate look at her sub tiles and from here things get weird we find Lisa at gunpoint being held hostage by a sentai villain named death mask Cecil demands that jean-luc surrender his weapon in exchange for her life Sean Luke everday useless bugger Ria's needs Jake to make a decision for him you just don't know when to stay dead anyway despite all his pomp and circumstance death-mask is a sodding job or is he a sod jobbing I believe we take off off Delisa elsewhere what follows is an intriguing bit of intrigue Colonel I'd like you to do something for me what die Cecil isn't feeling the whole political thing so he's pulling a coup and selling out word soon reaches the real heroes well what did this crying lion have to say he's demanding that we wire a hundred million dollars to an offshore bank account I do love that in the bad ending this betrayal just doesn't happen Cecil never bothers to carry it out I want to believe in the good ending he's just panicking and he's just decided to make any move that makes sense at that moment and then in walks dad gunning down Cecil and revealing his hidden ties are we doing the right thing sorry to interrupt the sad moment but again in the bad ending dangers sword disappears a lot of bad ending is just certain things are not happening when it makes more sense for them to happen in the bad continuity like Cecil's betrayal is somehow predicated on the efficiency of the scat team rather than his own motives since it's when the scat team is cutting a swath through his troops and closing in before the laser is ready to fire again that he decides to rebel and make himself an enemy of both groups which would only weaken his position it doesn't bother me all that much but I do find it entertaining this way Lisa barely awake overhears Dan spilling his loyalty to Sarkozy oh she questions whether what he's saying is true in other words I'm committing treason of the highest degree Dan tells her that should John Luke make it this far to come find him in the control room then he punches her in the stomach knocking her out mixed messages pal so after jean-luc guns his way to her Lisa reveals what really went down that Dan is alive had always intended to betray the unit and is waiting for him up ahead and well jean-luc is not a man of tact I don't know what the hell is going on but I intend to find out I was headed to the main control room anyway sometimes you just get got punched for nothing Lisa I had a feeling you'd make it here John Luke we come face-to-face with dad he explains it was him who sabotaged the helicopter and gunned down Steve and Tom jean-luc torn asked this man we have known but two scenes yet no better than him why he did what he did something we've already know but Sean doesn't and Dan responds that if he wants his motives we have to defeat him you know it's one thing if you're suggesting a fistfight but winning a gunfight often leaves the loser unable to explain themselves I can't fight you then face the consequences of your own foolishness oh what's the wrong footage so on the bad path dan's model is replaced with cecil is the exact same fight but it's meant to be Dan right now so Ellis fix that this battle tows a strange line it's obviously difficult it did make me call Cecil a dirty sock [ __ ] on the other it is sort of pitiable you know how enemies have a habit of standing there explosive barrels well the final boss has rigged all of his own cover to blow for some reason it can be a bit tricky to pull these shots off what will his impeccable quick shot and grenade spam but afterwards he just goes and hides on a stairwell as he's shot to death his AI incapable of the surrender he clearly once it's terribly sad so as Dan Lee's dying he explains over the course of a very slow four minutes how he is a Sarkozy and how the Civil War started and how he was swept up in it how he was saved by his brother Kenneth and how the guilt of what he has done haunts him with every moment and well it's terribly insulting as the subtitles keep spelling sarkozy are wrong and as dad dies jean-luc reveals his unwavering naivete if you had just told us we might have found a way to help now it's too late Cecil then walks in and blows up Dan's corpse what follows is an insanely easy post final boss boss as we crawl under a laser and naba turret pointed at the door we use to come in using it to pulverize cecil's pelvis Lisa who by the way is the one who knows how to operate the Gulf Stream arrives and jean-luc going far far above his station has a request sounds easy enough reposition 180 degrees and are you nuts just do it think of the thousands of lives that have already been lost due to this thing so massive treason is commit the free remaining members of the ill-fated scat team leave a number free to many sure Luke and Lisa are likely to be branded traitors and Keith who only lived you two sitting the mission out well his reputation will probably never recover and that is the tale of operation wind back I originally moved part of this conclusion to near the beginning then figured it was cowardly to do so but I am well aware the operation wind back is a product of its time it is nearly twenty years old games age design trends change new ideas get revamped and old ones revisited I spent a play fruit in frustrating misunderstanding followed by one of equally frustrating understanding I hope people are on my wavelength and this late into the video this won't stop a comment or two misunderstanding my intent but I am NOT bashing it just because it is old in my first draft I wanted to say win back has been rendered entirely obsolete by late games that took these same elements and refine them but that isn't the case win back has its own unique interpretation on time mechanics cover how weapons should work and how enemies should be approached I don't like to say the games have been rendered obsolete every game has its own little spin on things but the results here are on their own merits mixed and well besides all this those who watch this channel should know by now that I find refinement a double-edged sword sometimes I do like to sit down and play something polished but more often the rougher jankier side of the spectrum is far more imaginative and interesting even when it comes with its foibles and yeah I'm not covering went back just to bash it in retrospect I am being critical because I find it flawed on its own merits kid me didn't enjoy this back in the early 2000s he got bored early but now as an older stranger person I find fascination and respect for this strange mishmash of ideas games age but there is no defense from criticism or evaluation and as for that mishmash win-back exists in some sort of strange conflict with itself a timer you could easily presume doesn't exist locational damaged systems hamstrung by zero effect seemingly random hits done links dynamic music tide to slowly changing circumstances a hidin attack laser aiming system with abysmal sensitivity and rare occasions where it is of use and it's all set under a story that likely was not meant to be read as a bumbling idiot comedy but works best if taken that way and well it bundled into a sequel in 2006 developed not by Omega force but computer amusement visualizer perhaps best known for the Drakengard series when back to project Poseidon really is cover from another mother this won't be a full analysis of wind back to you consider this a small addendum since put simply I can't stomach playing win back tooth and I realize how bad that sounds coming from me so to explain no this is far from the worst game I played but it doesn't gel with me which really is a shame let's get into why that is most often something that isn't a negative win back to has nothing to do with the events of the first game we follow a new crew of characters under the banner of CRT which while outdated is better than scat I love that the menu has a voice diary an affirmation that yes we have actors this time yeah this may be a few years out but Carvey has felt they had something to prove it retains its genre as a third-person cover based shooter but unlike windbag one which was breaking some new ground by 2006 cover was pretty well known it's rolling games understood so it would be blase to just use cover as the standout feature so in a wise move went back to expanse on countdowns expanding on timed missions and timed events instead of one big mission we're now faced with a series of episodic levels taking anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour to complete these could be bank robberies cartel crackdowns and while a plot about a stolen nuclear weapon was building up I got off before it went anywhere the levels make heavy use of time mechanics and scoring systems playing up the rkd nature of win-back by making each mission a miniature score attack which grades you on several criteria encouraging replays it ranks speedy play non-lethal takedowns and not taking damage quite the balancing act each mission sees you play to members of CRT on separate routes played one after the other but taking place simultaneously on the first route you encounter an occasional time segment or hidden puzzle to solve doing these quickly then gives you bonuses when you later play the same segment from the other characters perspective it could be saving your partner from an ambush or deactivating lasers doing them well also pays out health when you get to that segment as the other character I find this idea of playing well to affect the course of a stage later on interesting especially since it's handled in diegetic fashion your skillful play tangibly rewards you the locational damage system is also integrated far more fully all enemies save for bosses go down into hits unless you shoot the head but headshots are penalized arm shots make enemies drop weapons doubling your ammo gain if you land one at also shot incapacitates for a long time allowing for a follow-up shot and a leg shot will permanently stop an enemy from moving so you have options for how you approach each gunfight different bonuses and drawbacks to consider especially as ammo is once again kept low certain gunfights are difficult to the point that headshots which do cost you points since non-lethal play is encouraged are actually the safest option to carry out due to their expediency but on the other hand headshot enemies do not drop ammo but it saves the bullet I like all these ideas but I cannot stomach how terrible the cover shooting is and unlike the first game cover here is genuinely necessary enemies are highly accurate highly aggressive and there is a much faster pace and while the controls have changed they remain terrible this is all capped off by an awkward flow I have never seen before unlike most cover based shooters where you hold a button to aim which pops you out cover and allows you to shoot here you choose way to shoot while in cover hit the shoot button and the character pops out in a big flourish meaning every shot is on a big half second delay you have to time shots out of cover around enemies with sporadic frequent and inconsistent gunfire on the delay which is in no uncertain terms [ __ ] annoying and that is what you are doing for 90% of the time spent in play it's like pulling teeth ok got the shot yeah that always happens lock on is of course gone and replaced with a healthy dose of aim assist though it's not much help there are terrible enemy spawns and there are mid mission cutscenes which wouldn't be so bad if not for one of the most inept gunfights I've ever played that had free cutscenes interrupting it all free of which reset my camera to its starting position facing away from enemies and taking me out of cover they would trigger even as I had the crosshairs on an enemy it's odd to be annoyed and amused at the same time but what else could I be this is so ridiculous I can only be mad at it half-heartedly another shame is that win back to has some banger music wasted on it even the menu music makes me want to actually play it and catch those bad guys and on that note the intro is amazing even if it really over sells what these lot are capable of and that's all I have to say about when back to it's made up of good ideas built on a flimsy foundation which is a shame it is a thoughtful spiritual continuation of ideas that were in when back 1 but 1 its most noticeable quality it's recognizable but possesses its own identity with unique reward systems to encourage and satisfy skillful play but that plays for alia unpleasant I'd love to be able to say win back to is an overlooked gem but I couldn't recommend it in good faith and well this brings us to the end of the win back series I've forgotten Trailblazer nowadays most times I see people talk about the origins of cover in this form credit typically goes to kill switch when covering older games it is wise to take time and context into consideration people who say age shouldn't be taken into account on making a useless point technical limitations and new ideas are worthy of respect and as I said new ideas carry the risk of being unproven ground and for an early attempt wind back found a rhythm that remains somewhat unique to this day unique doesn't necessarily translate to good of course as is the case with the original title and it's a little-known sequel the sad take away at the end of it all is that wall ideas are all well and good execution is more important but ideas often just need to be demonstrated for others to pick them up and run with them offering new interpretations refinement or bolting them on to their own creations I respect wind back but god it's a bit [ __ ] now thank you all for watching I hope you enjoyed this little trip thanks to those who join me on my stream where I was trying to drill some minor details of the game into my head and thank you especially for sticking around as I did so 130 people simultaneously is a ridiculous number to me and I hope I entertained each of you and the same goes for anyone watching this video now if you want to support further episodes of playing please spread this around like subscribe and all those words I'll take the piss out of with the odd nut gamer and if you want to join the good people scrolling past you can support my patreon helper tears gaining access to scripts and notes and further on from that there are bonus after port videos where I go over last-second forts answer viewer questions and test out viewer requests within the game I've covered the questions are best left in a patron exclusive discord where there is a channel to keep track of them until next time this is - snake ro have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year back date you the video at the last second

Channel: Tehsnakerer

Views: 178,611

Rating: 4.9329047 out of 5

Keywords: Operation Winback, Winback, Winback review, operation winback review, The Birth of cover, cover based shooter, winback analysis, operation winback analysis, winback covert operations, winback critique, operation winback critique, 24 Dec 2018, cover shooting game, Winback game, winback gameplay, omega force, winback 2, winback 2 review, The birth of cover, TehSnakerer, Funny game review, funny, bad game, obscure game review, Winback n64, Winback ps2, Winback ost

Id: dQCdj1Z8FYs

Length: 62min 25sec (3745 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Haven't watched the video yet but I loved this on the N64. Been meaning to go back since it was too difficult for me back then and I never finished it.

[u/[deleted]]

As someone who played the hell out of this on the N64, not seeing him do the quick headshot with the pistol out of cover was painful. Maybe it was patched out of the PS2 version?

For those who don't know/remember, you could guarantee a headshot by firing with the right timing when coming out of cover - especially easy when standing from a crouch. It made the game waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay easier and more fluid.

[u/Balbanes42]

I would argue that Time Crisis was the definitive birth of cover shooters. It created the genre in the most literal way. The foot pedal clanking still gives me ptsd!