G.B.R : Special Commando Unit/Fast Response Group, a Terrible G.R.A.W clone.

[Samz707]

A pretty obscure title, G.B.R is interesting because it clearly wants to copy G.R.A.W, it came out in 2008 and checking some screenshots (Such as IMFDB's page for the game or other places like moby games.) shows how the HUD is pretty heavily based on the FPS versions of GRAW's hud. (As well as the graphics looking inferior to the original G.R.A.W)

I've only gotten to mission 2 because the game has 12 missions and it badly tries to copy G.R.A.W's "Tactical-Lite" gameplay but does so poorly.

The game was so obscure that it was only a month ago that someone actually did a full walkthrough of it: 

(The LP is from a German creator but it's based on the english version.)

Simply put, G.B.R makes some truly awful design choices that are baffling.

For starters, no checkpoints, or saving, yep, every mission is like Rainbow Six 1, you die (and you only control yourself so it's not even like Rainbow Six where you could play another opperative if you die.) and it's back to the start.

Secondly, when you buy equipment for a mission, only your loadout is "saved",extra ammo, teammates and armor all have to be bought again, this means if the game crashes on starting a mission, you just wasted money and will have to grind more money, (Thankfully you can quit missions mid-game and earn money that way.) worse still, even the very first level basically requires extra ammo and armor to be purchased, you only have *two* spare magazines for an AK and Glock if you don't buy extra ammo, in stark contrast to the old Clancy games, where you got alot of ammo and extra ammo was more for doubling down/lone wolfing.

So essentially if you quit a mission after dying (or if the game crashes), congrats, you have wasted a ton of in-game money, thankfully the first level can be done with only a small amount of equipment but it's really bad. (And I couldn't find where the game stores your playthrough's money so my only option was to grind it back up instead of cheating myself more money if I crashed.)

As you can see in the video, audio quality for guns is terrible. (The AKS-74U for instance uses one of the worst silenced gun shot noises I've heard, even if it's not equipped with a suppressor.)

You can also buy every gun from the start and while you have two weapon slots, you can equip any gun, there's actually nothing stopping you equipping the best weapons together. (Why take a Glock and a AKS-74U when you can literally take a PKM and SVD together from the start.) 

I doubt anyone has, but has anyone here also played this pretty bad G.R.A.W Clone? I am kinda dissapointed it turned out badly, if only because I like the idea of Tactical Shooters with other nations instead of just the USA over and over. (it's why I liked ARMA 2 since they had the British Army, Mercenaries and the Czech Army as DLC factions with their own campaigns and why in GR1 I really like how the Specialist wear their old uniforms/use weapons from their country.) 

Still, to give this game (that apparently uses alot of stock animations from the FPS creator it's from), some credit compared to modern games, you have basic squad commands and they work, so that's more than your average FPS game, still, it's poorly balanced and ultimately not very good, I grabbed it while it was on Gamersgate digitally and it's now gone from there.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Samz707

[Samz707]

I played some more, I just want to do a follow up "More reasons this game bad" thing, as I really don't want people to get the impression this game is good. (It's apparently made on an FPSmaker engine and it shows.)

AI in this game has perfect 360 vision as long as you aren't far away, you will see enemies do 180 turns instantly to shoot at you, then 180 back the instant you're out of sight, the only upside here is that this also applies to friendly AI.

Therefore the only way to not get shot is simple, it seems your character model doesn't move when leaning, as the AI cannot see you any more when you're leaning around cover, therefore the only way to not get shot at constantly, is to lean around every corner and abuse corner peaking essentially being wallhacks to survive.

Your starting health is 15 (Yes, 15, not 100 for some reason) and cannot be refilled mid-mission, it's also possible to take damage that bypasses your body armor. (I want to stress again you have to completely restart every mission in this game once you die, no saving or checkpoints, so taking damage because an enemy a decent chunk away did an instant 180 turn and shot you, and that shot bypassed your armor, is not exactly fun.)

Game is buggy, it likes to crash or sometimes when starting a mission, either for the first time or a death restart, the game will completely lose all sound until you restart the game. (Which is a completely new bug to me.)

Don't get me wrong, I love playing obscure hidden gems but G.B.R fails so much at basic game design, that I really want to stress that any Ghost Recon fans who haven't already played it, beware, it's really not good.

On the other hand, if you want a "tactical shooter" to livestream so people can watch you rage, well, I don't think you can get much more rage inducing than this, the only "positive" is that most missions only last around 10 minutes most on a successful run. 

[101459]

LOL WOW! Thanks Samz707 for posting this! I remember this game, game came out, I was on a binge of buying every realism shooter that came out, just because I had a yen to see interesting one-off game engines, and love the genre (actually binge buying realism games never stopped) 🤣. I gave up on this one in frustration and annoyance, but  it's cool to read someone else has actually given this a go, and gone further with it than I could!

[Samz707]

On 05/04/2023 at 03:56, 101459 said:

LOL WOW! Thanks Samz707 for posting this! I remember this game, game came out, I was on a binge of buying every realism shooter that came out, just because I had a yen to see interesting one-off game engines, and love the genre (actually binge buying realism games never stopped) 🤣. I gave up on this one in frustration and annoyance, but  it's cool to read someone else has actually given this a go, and gone further with it than I could!

Yeah it's pretty bad.

I have been trying to soldier through it after having it on my PC for years, currently on mission 6 out of 12. (Which I haven't attempted yet.)