A solid World War II game is hard to find. With hundred of choices between RTS’ and FPS’, your hard-earned money can dissipate in a snap! What if you could have the best of both worlds, combining destruction-on-demand gameplay and FPS/RTS combat scenario? The result is THQ’s latest shooter, The Outfit. The Outfit blew up everything we knew about the traditional representation of WWII games. The game is fun the first week, but its adrenaline steam slowly runs out because of the repetitive battles. In The Outfit, you control a group of three heroes, each in control of their own squad, and each with their own special set of weapons and squad orders. You’ve got J.D Tyler, the sniper, Thomas, the submachine gunner, and Deuce Williams, the rocket man, who appears to come straight out of Walker, Texas Ranger.

The general goal of the game is to destroy the living daylights out of the Nazis, and that’s pretty much what you do in every mission: blow things up, save allies, and blow more things up! The Outfit plays a lot like an unrealistic version of Ghost Recon. The only difference between the two games is that you have unlimited grenades and ammunition here. Just like Ghost Recon, you can issue commands for your squad. You can order them to charge, hold position, or whatever instructions that goes well with the present situation. Surprisingly, your squad reacts intelligently. They’re relatively successful in killing and manning guns. Should your entire squad dies, including your character, you can always respawn to a chosen point in the map.

If demolishing an entire town wasn’t satisfying enough for you, the RTS elements add a lot more. You have access to “Destruction on Demand”, where you spend FU points, which is earned by killing a number of Nazi soldiers and blowing everything up that comes into sight. These FU points can be used to buy general war items and have them FedEx-ed straight to you via parachute. Some of the items you can purchase include military tanks, 4x4s with mounted bazookas, and stationary machine guns to name a few. One of the better highlights in the game is the ability to call for air strikes that can quickly suppress your enemy’s strong points.

However, the problem with this though, is that you can accidentally kill your own guys if they don’t move out of the way for weapon delivery, particularly if you’re ordering giant military vehicles. Once you infiltrate a certain number of enemy territories, you’ll be able to utilize whatever piece of equipment they have in store, from Radio Towers, to Nazi Armories, to Motor Pools. Many hardcore FPS or RTS enthusiasts may find The Outfit a bit dull because of the very forgiving approach to the way you can overpower your enemy’s superiority; but for casual fans of shooting games this is actually quite fun. And if you’re one of those run-and-gun types of player, you’ll definitely appreciate Outfit’s arcadish shooting style and the fast-paced action sequences.

In terms of multiplayer, the game features Live support, which allows up to eight of your friends going at it at once. If you think eight is too small of a number for a war game, do remember that you’ve got the RTS elements, and that every player commands a squad of four. So if you do the math, that’s 40 people on the map! That spells chaos! There’s nothing better than obliterating your friends’ with a bazooka mounted on a 4x4 jeep, squashing them with a heavy duty military tank, or blasting them into smithereens with a frag grenade. It’s really fun to see all the action unfolds. Of course, if you can’t afford Live yet, you can still enjoy the same experience through the game’s coop mode. The coop mode is really great. You and a buddy are just going to crush the incursion of the Nazis. The fun part is that while you’re doing the dirty work, your buddy can destroy a different section of the map. Since it’s a tag team effort, whatever medals you get after completing a mission, your friend gets it, too!

The Outfit, being a 360 game, looks quite dated, though the special effects are top-notch. You’ll notice after a while that the terrain is quite bland, and some of the textures aren’t as sharp as they should. The characters you play are nicely detailed, but your teammates lack great attention. In fact, some of them look like they came out of a PS2 game. It’s one of those inadequate presentations you don’t really notice outside the cutscenes; so it’s forgivable. The graphics are still very good in many respects. Trees cast realistic shadows; the surrounding village burns as though it radiates heat; vehicles explode with impact; buildings blow up like the 4th of July fireworks. In the audio department, The Outfit’s sound effects are intense! The explosion from tanks and buildings take you right into the action.

You’ll run across a deafening ambience of over 30 Nazis with bazookas, rifles, and halftracks. The guns are loud and accurately represented, but sometimes, they lack punch. The sounds on the vehicles are convincingly precise but somewhat muffled because it’s overpowered by other explosions going on at the same time. Voice acting is good, but does a person really need to listen to the same macho lines over and over again? They are being used way too often! The orchestral soundtrack is fine for the most part. It does a good job mimicking the hostilities of war. Overall, The Outfit is a good shooting game – it’s really exciting playing with your friends, but as a single-player, you’ll likely to get bored with its repetitive gameplay. It’s the first of its kind that combines the RTS elements with the FPS formula. THQ’s first attempt at this revolutionary idea is not too bad. It is rather aimed at casual gamers, but if you're expecting some hardcore shooting, try renting it first.