Another issue with the weapons is that they overheat far too easily and the cool down time is way too long, or in the case of vehicle weapons the reload time is painstakingly long. Perhaps this was done as an attempt at play balance in the game, but the end result is a lot of frustrating wait time during which you’re powerless to do anything.

The game has issues with the vehicle controls as well. The steering is not responsive or consistent and you’ll often bump up against landscape features or accidentally drive over one of your allies. When you do get stuck it is a very frustrating affair as it seems that nothing less than a five point turn is required to get you on your way again. Making matters worse is that the camera will sometimes clip inside your vehicle while you’re stuck, which makes it impossible to figure out what you need to do to get on your way. In this situation I found it easier to abandon the vehicle and call in a new one rather than try and get myself out of the jam.

Putting that tank to good use.

Each of the game’s missions is a very linear affair with the maps even designed to funnel you from one objective to the next. You have a choice as to which character to use at the start of each mission, but the experience does not really differ based on your choice. In fact, if you die you will respawn at one of your controlled objectives, at which point you can choose to come back as any of the characters. Your objectives in the missions are pretty much always the same: capture the next objective, defend something against a few waves of attackers, or defend some allies against a few waves of attackers. These issues conspire to make the game’s campaign a pretty repetitive affair that very quickly has a “been there, done that” feel to it. Each mission features optional objectives that if completed will award you medals and unlock a corresponding achievement. You may be motivated to go through each mission to unlock all of the achievements and return to those for which you didn’t win your medals, but otherwise the missions are so bland and repetitive that you’ll have little reason to go back through the game’s short campaign.

It would be easy to write off The Outfit as a rental at best if it weren’t for the game’s multiplayer mode. There’s a co-op mode that lets you play through the single player missions with a friend and a standard death match mode, both of which you can pretty much take or leave. The real excitement comes in the form of the strategic victory mode. This mode pits a German team against an American team in a bid to capture all of the strategic points on a map. Each team can consist of one, two, or three players, and the three on three mode is where most of the excitement and mayhem lie. Calling in guns to protect objectives, storming enemy positions and then using their weapons against them, sneaking into an objective area through a backdoor hole in the enemy defenses … all of this makes for fast-paced and exciting gameplay. On the downside, the game’s weapons issues conspire to make it difficult to kill enemy players themselves, but at least everyone has to struggle with the same problem. It is also far too easy to hijack enemy vehicles and I’d be perfectly happy if this feature were not in the game. Lastly, The Outfit can be susceptible to bouts of lag time and I don’t need to tell you how frustrating that can be when it raises its ugly head.

All in all, The Outfit has some interesting features that are dragged down by gameplay issues and repetitive level design. It is not really recommendable as a single player experience, but if you’re an Xbox Live gamer it will make for some fun time spent online.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 69%. The Outfit’s single player mode needs to be sent back to basic training, but the multiplayer game deserves a tour of duty.

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