Joint Task Force
Encyclopedia
Joint Task Force is a PC real-time tactics
game where players command military forces in combat situations based on modern day conflicts.
The game includes officially licensed vehicles and weapons systems from major defense contractors including Boeing
, Lockheed Martin
, General Dynamics
, Northrop Grumman
and Sikorsky
.
Joint Task Force was developed by Most Wanted Entertainment and was co-published by HD Publishing and Sierra Entertainment
in September 2006.
, Bosnia
, Afghanistan
, Colombia
and Iraq
.
In the first mission in the game, O'Connell successfully secures a cargo ship suspected to be used as an arms transport at Port Mogadishu. However, he discovers that whatever cargo the ship had been holding had been removed, and only finds a laptop and documents. During later missions in Somalia Cleveland informs O'Connell that Intel was able to find little information from the laptop, save email exchange over a 'Product 7' being shipped out. During a mission, the JTF captures a convoy which had been transporting the materials brought in by the cargo ship during the first mission. O'Connell informs Cleveland that the convoy was carrying HXE explosives, a state of the art explosive more powerful than C4. Unfortunately, not all of the cargo were present in the convoy.
During another mission in Mogadishu itself, the JTF is able to capture Farrah's arms minister Mahmoud Abbas, who later reveals the location of Farrah himself. At the same mission, one of O'Connell's troops is shot dead when attempting to evacuate a reporter who refuses to leave. Cleveland informs O'Connell that the reporter in question is Pepper Morgan, a world renowned war-reporter. The JTF is able to infiltrate Farrah's position close to the Kenyan border, but halfway through the mission Cleveland informs O'Connell that instead of capturing Farrah as originally planned, he is now ordered to kill Farrah. An upset O'Connell protests, saying that 'I joined the JTF to leave that kind of work behind', but is only rebuked by an angry Cleveland. The mission is a success, with Farrah killed when his tank is destroyed. Back at base, where the JTF troops are celebrating, O'Connell sits alone in a dark locker room, where he guiltily remembers having fought in a battle in Somalia way before with another man. Running low on ammo, O'Connell is ordered by the unknown man to booby-trap a prisoner with a grenade, before both of them flee.
Instead of resource collection, players get money to spend per mission and per objective. Troopers and equipment are assigned at the beginning of each mission, and more may be ordered by helicopter and trooper transport. Heavily armoured vehicles such as the M1A2 Abrams tank and the M2A3 IFV are airdropped in by a Hercules transport plane onto a captured runway. Therefore if a player wants the upper hand in a mission, he must capture and control the runway for armoured support.
Troopers also gain experience and can be promoted to officer status. Officers have a skill tree that can be improved over time, similar to popular role-playing games. These officers will then give you a massive advantage on the battlefield depending on their speciality. For instance, a vehicle crewman gets a lot of experience from a mission, and is eligible for promotion, this now makes him an officer and is most combat effective when in a vehicle.
The singleplayer campaign can be played cooperatively with another player.
The game also features a 'Skirmish' mode where the player can choose one of three factions: JTF, Terrorists or Dictators.
Real-time tactics
Real-time tactics or RTT is a subgenre of tactical wargames played in real-time simulating the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics...
game where players command military forces in combat situations based on modern day conflicts.
The game includes officially licensed vehicles and weapons systems from major defense contractors including Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
, Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....
, General Dynamics
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...
, Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American global aerospace and defense technology company formed by the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company was the fourth-largest defense contractor in the world as of 2010, and the largest builder of naval vessels. Northrop Grumman employs over...
and Sikorsky
Sikorsky Aircraft
The Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. Its parent company is United Technologies Corporation.-History:...
.
Joint Task Force was developed by Most Wanted Entertainment and was co-published by HD Publishing and Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
in September 2006.
Setting
Joint Task Force is set in 2008. In the single-player campaign, players follow the JTF first battalion and its commander, Major Matthew O’Connell, in a fight for order and stability in missions based on actual combat situations. The single player campaign consists of 5 scenarios set in SomaliaSomalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
, Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
and Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Plot
The story begins in war-wracked Somalia, where the most powerful warlord in the country, Akil Farrah, has managed to overthrow the ruling government and proclaims himself President. He establishes a dictatorship, targeting ethnic minorities. The game itself opens in a destroyed town, where Farrah's troops are shooting at fleeing civilians. Farrah arrives on top a tank to watch one of his men execute a captured man, possibly a prisoner. Unbeknonwst to them, the act is videotaped by a reporter in hiding, and the tape is shown to Major O'Connell during a briefing. His superior, General Cleveland, informs him that he and the JTF First Battalion will be sent to Somalia to remove Farrah's regime, and grants him the jurisdiction to do whatever it takes to succeed. Cleveland reminds him that this is the first JTF operation, and that no mistakes are allowed. During the scene Cleveland informs O'Connell that he is aware of 'certain missions' he had accomplished there before. Later, while O'Connell is being flown in towards his first mission, a monologue reveals that O'Connell had previously fought for Farrah as part of a black ops operation supported by the government, aimed at reinstating the Resources for Aid program. O'Connell is remorseful of what he did there, and is determined to make up for it by removing Farrah's brutal regime.In the first mission in the game, O'Connell successfully secures a cargo ship suspected to be used as an arms transport at Port Mogadishu. However, he discovers that whatever cargo the ship had been holding had been removed, and only finds a laptop and documents. During later missions in Somalia Cleveland informs O'Connell that Intel was able to find little information from the laptop, save email exchange over a 'Product 7' being shipped out. During a mission, the JTF captures a convoy which had been transporting the materials brought in by the cargo ship during the first mission. O'Connell informs Cleveland that the convoy was carrying HXE explosives, a state of the art explosive more powerful than C4. Unfortunately, not all of the cargo were present in the convoy.
During another mission in Mogadishu itself, the JTF is able to capture Farrah's arms minister Mahmoud Abbas, who later reveals the location of Farrah himself. At the same mission, one of O'Connell's troops is shot dead when attempting to evacuate a reporter who refuses to leave. Cleveland informs O'Connell that the reporter in question is Pepper Morgan, a world renowned war-reporter. The JTF is able to infiltrate Farrah's position close to the Kenyan border, but halfway through the mission Cleveland informs O'Connell that instead of capturing Farrah as originally planned, he is now ordered to kill Farrah. An upset O'Connell protests, saying that 'I joined the JTF to leave that kind of work behind', but is only rebuked by an angry Cleveland. The mission is a success, with Farrah killed when his tank is destroyed. Back at base, where the JTF troops are celebrating, O'Connell sits alone in a dark locker room, where he guiltily remembers having fought in a battle in Somalia way before with another man. Running low on ammo, O'Connell is ordered by the unknown man to booby-trap a prisoner with a grenade, before both of them flee.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Joint Task Force is focused around tactical decision making.Instead of resource collection, players get money to spend per mission and per objective. Troopers and equipment are assigned at the beginning of each mission, and more may be ordered by helicopter and trooper transport. Heavily armoured vehicles such as the M1A2 Abrams tank and the M2A3 IFV are airdropped in by a Hercules transport plane onto a captured runway. Therefore if a player wants the upper hand in a mission, he must capture and control the runway for armoured support.
Troopers also gain experience and can be promoted to officer status. Officers have a skill tree that can be improved over time, similar to popular role-playing games. These officers will then give you a massive advantage on the battlefield depending on their speciality. For instance, a vehicle crewman gets a lot of experience from a mission, and is eligible for promotion, this now makes him an officer and is most combat effective when in a vehicle.
The singleplayer campaign can be played cooperatively with another player.
The game also features a 'Skirmish' mode where the player can choose one of three factions: JTF, Terrorists or Dictators.
Minimum system specifications
- WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
2000/XP Home or Professional/x64 - Intel Pentium 4Pentium 4Pentium 4 was a line of single-core desktop and laptop central processing units , introduced by Intel on November 20, 2000 and shipped through August 8, 2008. They had a 7th-generation x86 microarchitecture, called NetBurst, which was the company's first all-new design since the introduction of the...
2 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 2000+ - NVIDIANVIDIANvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
GeForce 4 (non-MX) or ATIAtiAs a word, Ati may refer to:* Ati, a town in Chad* Ati, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines* Ati-Atihan Festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines* Ati, a queen of the fabled Land of Punt in Africa...
RadeonRadeonRadeon is a brand of graphics processing units and random access memory produced by Advanced Micro Devices , first launched in 2000 by ATI Technologies, which was acquired by AMD in 2006. Radeon is the successor to the Rage line. There are four different groups, which can be differentiated by...
9500, DirectX 9.0c compliant videocard with 128 MB RAM - 512 MB RAMRam-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
- 3 GB of uncompressed hard drive space
- DirectX 9.0c compatible sound cardSound cardA sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...
- DirectX 9.0c (included)
- 4x CD/DVD-ROM drive
- Microsoft-compatible mouse and keyboard
- 56 kbit/s dial-up modem for online play; 10 Mbit/s for LAN play
Recommended system requirements
- WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
XP Home or Professional - Intel Pentium 4Pentium 4Pentium 4 was a line of single-core desktop and laptop central processing units , introduced by Intel on November 20, 2000 and shipped through August 8, 2008. They had a 7th-generation x86 microarchitecture, called NetBurst, which was the company's first all-new design since the introduction of the...
3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 3000+ - NVIDIANVIDIANvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
GeForce 6800GeForce 6 SeriesThe GeForce 6 Series is Nvidia's sixth generation of GeForce graphic processing units. Launched on April 14, 2004, the GeForce 6 family introduced PureVideo post-processing for video, SLI technology, and Shader Model 3.0 support .-GeForce 6 Series features:-SLI:The Scalable Link...
GT video cardVideo cardA video card, Graphics Card, or Graphics adapter is an expansion card which generates output images to a display. Most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors...
with 256 MB RAM - 1 GB RAMRam-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
- 24x CD/DVD-ROM drive
- Broadband connection for online play
See also
- Sierra EntertainmentSierra EntertainmentSierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
- List of strategy video games
- Real-time tacticsReal-time tacticsReal-time tactics or RTT is a subgenre of tactical wargames played in real-time simulating the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics...
- Windows 2000Windows 2000Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
(Minimum suggested system requirement.)
External links
- Official Joint Task Force Website The official game website maintained by HD Publishing.
- Sierra Entertainment The official website of publisher Sierra EntertainmentSierra EntertainmentSierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...
.