Combat Medic: Special Operations (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.0 stars Mediocre
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 4.2 (2.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Andrew Park
• Reviewed on: 05/14/2002
• Updated on: 05/17/2006
• Released on: 04/30/2002
• Originally published on GameSpot: Combat Medic: Special Operations (PC) Review

Legacy Interactive's Combat Medic: Special Ops is basically a cross between an action game and a puzzle game. You play as a modern-day combat medic engaged in a war in the Middle East, and you occasionally play through top-down action sequences in which you shoot at enemy soldiers, though you spend the majority of the game operating on wounded soldiers using a puzzle-game interface. It's an unusual idea, and certainly an interesting one, but as you play, you'll find that Combat Medic probably wasn't the best idea for a game.

Combat Medic basically has two parts: an action part and a puzzle part. The action part makes up a relatively small percentage of the game, and in it, you control your tiny combat medic from a top-down perspective as he runs about the battlefield shooting at enemy soldiers and looking for wounded allied troops. This part of the game isn't exciting or fast-paced, since aiming at your enemies is as easy as pointing and clicking on them until they stop moving, which they usually do quickly. It's not particularly attractive either, since these action sequences take place between crude stick-figure representations of soldiers on extremely pixelated battlefields. The sound effects for the various weapons and radio communications are adequate, but they don't really make the action sequences any more interesting. When you find an injured patient, you can switch to the patient screen. Once there, you can quickly switch to and from the action screen, which you may have to do if you're taking fire.

You'll spend most of your time in Combat Medic in the patient screen, treating wounded soldiers, whom you'll find lying scattered about the action maps. As soon as you begin treating a soldier, the game's perspective switches to a close-up view of a blocky, stiffly animated 3D soldier who may be suffering from a number of different conditions, ranging from shell shock to broken limbs to life-or-death trauma. Depending on your patient's condition, he may insist that you let him get back into battle, moan in pain and fear, or be completely delirious--the voice acting is delivered convincingly, but there are only a few voice samples, and you'll soon hear them repeated. You treat each soldier using the tools in your backpack, all of which are authentic US Army medical tools, including nasal and tracheal breathing tubes, splints and cravats, and syringes filled with various painkillers. Essentially, it's a puzzle matching game. You must assess each patient's condition, and then perform the corresponding operation. For instance, if your patient has suffered a broken leg, you'll need to dress any wounds and put the leg in a splint. If your patient has had his midsection blown open, you'll need to bandage the blocky pink polygons sticking out of his stomach (his intestines) and give him some morphine for the pain. Despite the relatively crude graphics, Combat Medic's depiction of injuries is pretty graphic. Wounded soldiers are covered with blood, and you'll even be able to amputate limbs that can't be saved.

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