Task Force

Still not sure if this game is real or a scam

Best SOCOM-like ever on the market, very energetic dev who hops in voice chat with discord community nearly every night to discuss alpha/beta progress and join or spectate the nightly battles starting roughly 9-10PM EST. Dev was behind both the csgo and insurgency SOCOM mods. Detailed stat and rank system recently added, adding to the cumulative fun. Scratches that 3rd-person PVP itch well, with a lot of further improvements ahead.

Re downloading the game because of the little whiny babies who are just review bombing because they're braindead as fuck.

Unfortunately, the developer for this game is devastatingly toxic. Please heed the reviews as they are accurate. The game is also dead - development has been in limbo for YEARS. Even if a fruit ends up growing on this tree, the juice won't be worth the squeeze.

Game project appears to be dead. No updates since Jan 2023. I would not recommend buying this.

was an early access player and was accused by some no name devs for my ip having known to cheat when i had just moved in and got a new isp the game is trash and not worth the time to deal with the horrendous development teams issue.

This game is abandonware. The developers used assets that hey didn't create and tried to capitalize on a small and desperate fan base.
Hope the devs never find work in the field again. They should look into food service or something not in the video game industry.

Never said anything bad about this game, never said anything bad about Redline. I was booted from the discord last December for mentioning that I'd like to see the TTK a bit higher. I've received a game ban now because I am part of the SOCOM inspired Peak.53 game in development. They are banning people that play Peak.53 or have anything to do with Peak.53.

Decent Game, Horrid Developers that can't take constructive criticism and clearly have no intentions of listening to community feedback. Do not buy this game if it's important to you for developers to listen and update their game.

There are multiple instances of the developers removing forum posts if it even remotely suggests something is wrong with this game even if it's helpful and is addressing an actual issue with the game. If you're interested you can view Bigfry's video on this game.

STAY AWAY FROM ANYTHING REDLINE TOUCHES,
FAKED HIS DEATH FOR A FEW YEARS,
backdoored the TRS forums
many of us were shadow banned from this game,
and banned from the discord with zero warning, and without any reason.
now every time i try to join a game with players in, it says invalid connection...
so prettymuch cant play the game you purchased.

Game is doodoo, just spent the $ it wasn't worth to talk about the $100 I donated and got banned once I had a dev catch me livestreaming calling the game "basic". Glass ego, subpar gameplay.

Update: They gamebanned again because they were salty about the review 😂😂

Stay away...the development team seems to have gone missing. There are no other players to play with online (multiplayer only). BEWARE of giving your money up to this company.

Great game to play before bed. It's pretty boring and will put you to sleep. It's not the classic TPS, but maybe it can be fun later down the line.

Banned from dedicated servers and discord for nothing. Maybe killed people to well? Fun game if you like socom but the player count has already reached its lowest. There is no way to play between 3am-1pm CST due to all the players working their job or sleeping since the player base consist of whiny 40 year olds. Go buy modern warfare 2 and play the 3rd person mode.

So this Biz clan guy teamkilled me, so I jokingly return the favor at the end of the next round. Dude loses his crap and him and his buddy in the Biz clan go on a tk spree. I guess they mistook me for someone else doing it earlier in the game? I tried to put an end to it, and some other gamers unfortunately caught up in the middle of it.

So while in the midst of their melt down filled with endless insults they must have gotten in touch with one of the developers P$ Dirty, and the dude kicks me out of the game. So this developer is going to be people's personal SJW warrior and kick people out of the game with friends that hosted the server (more than half the game were us).

Instead of kicking someone out of a server that their squad hosted, and playing god in a situation they had no idea what was going on with, they should maybe get rid of the instigators of the situation. Our squad was 2/3 of the server. We weren't going to kick anyone and we were willing to work things out with these players. Instead they had to call their buddy Mr. Developer to come wipe their behinds for them. We were having an absolute blast with the game too, and the throwback Socom stuff is cool. What a buzzhill. At any point, no one in our group started any trouble. We have never played like that.

I'd probably mark this game down as recommended, but we were all confused about this situation. Like I said, we were having a lot of fun, and I'd like to change this review to recommended.

IF YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED FOR SIMPLY POSTING A BAD REVIEW I HIGHLY RECOMMEND FLAGGING THESE DEVELOPERS. THEY ARE STEALING MONEY FROM THEIR CONSUMERS. TO FLAG SIMPLY FIND THE FLAG ICON ON THE STORE PAGE AND REPORT THEM.

Review UPDATE Banned after posting this review, Score is now 0 Scummy DEVS

getting multiple messages of people having the same issue of getting banned for a negative review, shows that these devs don't wanna make the game better, if they did they would attempt to prove me wrong, and say hey we are trying and lift the ban, and make me change my opinion.

They don't care they just want ur money for their own gain, which wouldn't be a problem if they were actually attempting to fix their game.

LET ME DIRECT YOU TO SOME SOCOM LIKE GAME WITH GOOD MEANING AND WELL INTENTIONED DEVS.

CHECK OUT THE REVOLUTION MOD FOR INSURGENCY AN EXCELLENT MOD WITH GOOD PEOPLE BEHIND IT. DONT SLEEP ON IT.

ZERO OPS FOR MOBILE GREAT DEVS FROM THE USA AIR FORCE USING UNITY AND

AND PROJECT BLACKOUT BY A ONE MAN TEAM, ALSO A REALLY STAND UP DUDE.

AND OF COURSE HAVE TO PAY RESPECTS TO THE OG SOCOM 2 AND THE SOCOM COMMUNITY. WHILE I DONT AGREE WITH A LOT OF THE BS GOING ON IN THERE RESPECT FOR KEEPING THE GAME ALIVE

THESE GUYS HAVE THEIR HEARTS IN IT, AND ARE NOT JADED AND CORRUPT WELL WORTH KEEEPING AN EYE OUT




For how long the game has been in development, the amount of drama stirred up by the developers, and the fact that they see their player base as mindless fools, and pawns, I can't bring my self to reccomend this game. The game could have been so much better if managed with more care and consideration. The amount of time this game has been in development it should be far more complete, they have had the same build for 2 years. Even with the advent of COVID possibly causing a set back, making a game from your computer from your home or office shouldn't have been SO affected.

Supporting this company leaves you with a grimy feeling especially if you know the history. Is the game awful? No,
True score 5.5 out of 10.

Biased score knowing the history of how this developer handled the game and final product
3.0 out of 10

the players are sour cry babies. you can be dogging the whole lobby anjd the server owner will just kick you for being to good. happens to me every other day. just know the majority of the player base is ass and will kick you if youre better. just a heads up LOLOL

Bought the game solely to cover it like a good little outlet that I am. I even gifted a copy to another outlet for them to cover. Immediately regret that decision. Before I get started on my experience with the game, allow me to list a few controversies about the game and why if you had any hope in H*** that Tracer Interactive can deliver a SOCOM experience, then you should consider this bridge burnt.

Tracer Interactive vs. BigFryTV

The main reason why I was turned to this game, and so did the other outlet. Despite what the public facing person who runs Tracer Interactive have said/is saying about the situation, the game is actually being developed by someone named "Redline". Redline has had a history of quitting projects when the heat is getting too much. And to be honest, I do NOT play a lot of shooters, so I can't speak of the quality of the projects. However, Redline when he started Task Force, back before the pandemic, has had an issue with BigFryTV. Why? Because Redline had ripped assets from SOCOM's developers Zipper Interactive. He further got BigFry's ire by abusing the Steam Workshop system by uploading them in a 1:1 conversion under a new Steam account and require people to "kiss the ring" as it were to get access to those maps. Shortly after BigFry released his video (linked below) containing his findings, he played Task Force for his Twitch audience. While he was playing the game, he got his first Game Ban.

Why did I phrase it that way?

Because when this game released, Ironically on the 20th anniversary of the original SOCOM's release, he made a fresh Steam account and bought the game. He was banned again within 20 minutes. Which tells me that Redline is watching streams of Task Force being played.

But that is low hanging fruit, I should say compared to the next controversy.

Relevant videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m2QdPnjFw4 - Video that earned BigFry his original ban.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRs93i0Mgr4 - Stream highlight that shows BigFry earning his second game ban.

Tracer Interactive vs. NightFyreTV

Almost a similar situation to BigFry, NightFyreTV was a shooter-focused channel, but the difference between the two is that whereas BigFry covers shooter related news, NightFyreTV focuses on the cheaters in the game, playing freely and without consequences. What got him caught up in Redline's ire? Simple. He was griefing, according to Redline. The truth of the matter is that there was one spawn point in the map that NightFyreTV was playing on. Full stop. Both teams would spawn on that point and situations like that form naturally. Number of kills he had before the banhammer? 5.

While I will admit that creating a cheat menu is a bit out of line as a response to the banning, it DOES highlight the piss poor response of Redline. If he had even bothered to do one shred of due diligence and read the situation properly, then NightFyreTV would still be playing the game today.

Other Misc. Bans

The game ban plague isn't limited to these two YouTubers. Redline issued a number of game bans, some for a precived slight, others for using language that might seem damning without context.

Take this twitch clip for example: https://clips.twitch.tv/CalmCreativeHabaneroFutureMan-zUFqEwRI-fo0fXlm

One N word without context, and as a result, both players who were involved in the Voice Communication both ate game bans. Just as a disclaimer, Niimda's gamer tag is [P$], which MAY indicate that they are friends with the development team, inparticular [P$] DiRTy, which is the public face of the development team and may or may not be Redline.

Terms of Service issue
https://archive.ph/PBk94

The preceding is the Terms of Service to Task Force as of August 5th, 2022. On it, under section 2 subsection C, there is a clause that you acknowledge that you will not directly or indirectly: (V) "Attempt to harass, threaten, bully, embarrass, abuse, or harm, or advocate or incite harassment, abuse, or harm of another person, group, Tracer Interactive itself or Tracer Interactive Affiliates;" (emphasis added)

It is basic standard non-disparaging clause, except for the word Embarrass. Why is that word in there? I wouldn't know, except for the justification of many game bans if one was issued.


MY Community Ban

We've addressed the game bans, let's address Early Access and why I got community banned before the game's release. Valve has made it perfectly clear that Early Access is NOT intended to crowdfund development of a game or software. They further address that by saying, "If you are counting on selling a specific number of units to complete your game, then you need to think carefully about what it would mean for you or your team if you don't sell that many units."

What Redline is doing is paramount to crowdfunding for a full release/continued developement of the game. He even admits this fact himself. In this archive of the steam store page ( https://archive.ph/PrN2T ), he admits that Task Force ran out of money for developement and is hoping to get money to continue development of the game, saying quote, "It has amateur animations, store-bought character skins, and there's tons of things missing and unfinished because we ran out of both time and money." (emphasis added).

When pointing it out in the Steam Discussion forums, I within 3 minutes of pointing it out, ate a community ban for the game. That means that I can no longer communicate to people on the reviews as well, which means that I would have to edit the review on the bottom just to talk to people.

Now about the game itself.

I'll be the first to admit that I did play the man a little, but here is the part of the program that I get to play the ball. The game itself is complete garbage. The graphics overheated my GPU to the point where my OBS was expelling errors about lack of encoding on the video itself. And I was playing with NOBODY in the area. No AI bots and no other players on the map. The training area is relatively simple, but regardless, it IS available for selection online, so that part is actually busted. In training mode, you have 5 minutes to create as much chaos and shoot pew-pew bullets at whatever objects that you desire. This broken, incomplete mess of a game doesn't even deserve the MANY positive reviews that it has received.

Overall score: Fail

Update 9/6/2022: As an experiment, I conducted an experiment as to how much carnage that I can do in an attempt to break the game without eating a game ban, and I have to say that the developers did NOT put care into boundaries of the training mode map.

The game doesn't use invisible walls, doesn't give you a warning as to when you are leaving the field of Operations, and above all else, you fall through the map when you reach a certain point outside the area of operations. Yay!

As far as the devs are concerned, they have screenshotted my initial review (even though I have updated it a total of 4 times since then, in an attempt to either scare me into silence or justify a potential game ban. I will say that this will not fly.

On the one hand, the core mechanics of this gamelet are excellent and are very reminiscent of the classic SOCOM games. The dev obviously loves these kinds of games and knows what to upgrade and what not to. With about 20 minutes of patience and tweaking, controller support is available (requires Big Picture mode) and works very well.
The dev is promising to add user-hosted dedicated server support, which is exciting.

On the other hand, I can't recommend purchasing in its current state. Native controller support is not completed, so there's a mouse+keyboard advantage that also kills the nostalgic aspect of the game. Cheating is already rampant; there is a moderating team, but they will never be able to keep up.

And based on the pattern I've seen on social media, I'm worried it will forever be locked in Early Access so that the EULA can stay fluid and the mods can ban people for any reason.
During a game that I participated in, a fellow player was lying prone in water - a perfectly reasonable tactic, and not a glitch at all - and was warned by a moderator that it would earn him a ban.

https://i.imgur.com/dEvWD8A.png

This particular moderator has very little online presence, to the point that no one knows he exists until he decides he needs to intervene. Why would a person like this have that kind of access to backend functions? If I choose to host a dedicated server in the future, will this moderator be allowed to kick me from my own games? The map on which this occurred was a Workshop Map ("Abandoned"), so why would a moderator threaten to ban someone for finding a great hiding spot on a user-created map?

These are important questions, and until the EULA is finalized with a proper TOS, anyone can lose access at any time, which basically makes this game really fun shovelware.

If the dev follows through and fully releases the game, I think it has the potential to be a pretty solid experience. I will be glad to revisit this review at that time.

I originally thought the price was a little high for an early access game like this but a good amount of the reviews suggested this game so i caved...what a mistake that was.
Game is borderline unplayable especially with controller.
no audio
terrible hit detection
randomly die in 1 shot out of no where
connection is brutal

if i could get a refund for this i would in a heart beat. keep in mind titanfall 2 is on sale for cheaper than this game if you're looking for a good shooter.

So.. it's a game. It's not terrible. But it's not great either. It is quite rough. Experiencing some crashing/freezing joining some lobbies on occasions, Firing button on mouse and keyboard sometimes acts like a toggle instead of only shooting while depressed. Movement is... ok? leaning left and right is so minimal its actually useless. "aiming" is really just lifting or lowering your weapon from high/low ready which is actually just more frustrating than useful. you can change the camera to first person but just plays like CSGO, no ads or anything.

This is like a rough draft you show to your professor as a college project. I'll be honest, It's not something I see maintaining a player base for super long, as many may very well get bored quickly as it just doesn't quite hit all the right spots. I advise any one to make their own decision but It's not quite a game I can recommend for a majority to purchase.

update: After forcing myself to get at least a few hours out of it, I have nothing to add, It gets boring after a few matches, it's a bit stale, it really is just the absolute bare minimum basics of a "socom" without everything else that makes socom, socom. Like a fine bread gone stale.

Final Update: As Predicted the player base has died. For many reasons I'm sure, but in the end it doesn't quite bring everyone what they want from a socom title.

Wrongly Ban Players.

After 2 years of not playing the game, I log on and hit the shooting range. Now I have a game ban on record? Goodjob Redline, you're killing it once again bud!

EDIT
I am updating my review because of how the developers are treating this game and its community. I was banned after 17hrs of play when I played my first respawn match. On the games official maps players will spawn in the same position, both teams. You either get trapped in a spray of bullets everytime you spawn or you trap people trying to spawn in a spray of bullets. Shortly after getting 5 kills I was kicked from the server with a ban message. I now have a game ban on my record.

Video Evidence of Ban
https://streamable.com/hsb6h6

ORIGINAL
This game does an amazing job at capturing the SOCOM 2 experience. As times goes on I expect we will see even more stuff created for the game via workshop. The team has done an amazing job and I expect to get countless hours of enjoyment from it. If you are itching for that SOCOM experience with a more modern take on graphics ... This is your best option

Redline, the Task Force "developer", who previously started projects like SOCOM:GO, SOCOM Insurgency and SOCOM Resurgence all which have failed, has been known to remove keys from donors/backers from his project for no reason or for critical remarks. He has a history of deleting posts, discussions and anything not positive about him or his projects dating back to the creation of SOCOM:GO.

He has already broken Steam’s TOS. He is using Early Access to crowdfund development of his “product”. As stated here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/earlyaccess, “You should not use Early Access solely to fund development”.

They state in their Task Force 3rd Party “EULA” that you are not allowed to "Attempt…embarrass…Tracer Interactive itself or Tracer Interactive Affiliates" and “Tracer Interactive has absolute and sole discretion to immediately terminate or restrict access to the Services, or any portion of the Services, including any and all Accounts, at any time, for any reason, without Notice and without liability to you”.

In short, this means they can ban your account for any reason without reason just by looking at you. You are not allowed to criticize the developers or the game if it makes them look bad. Will I catch a game ban for this review? Probably.

Ripped files from textures to character skins and music from the Sony PS2 SOCOM files and imported into the game. To even play the old school SOCOM maps you have to download them from the workshop. They charged $35 for gamers to help test the game and $50 to test community maps.

The game itself is lacking content. There is no lobby system. No ability to mute people in VOIP. It lacks weapon selection with no machine guns, shotguns or sniper rifles. No mines, claymores, or extra ammo. The dedicated servers don't work, you have to host them yourself. Players can easily hop to the other team without notice. No hit detection indicators like blood from the old SOCOMs. 6 years of development and the game is still missing basic features.

This is a nostalgic cash grab scam. Do. Not. Buy. -1/10.