Alpha Response

This is one of those instances where I wish I could leave a Mixed review. I see the potential of this game, I was getting Payday 2 vibes from playing it except instead of playing as criminals you are the police. The developers are still updating the game and doing bug tests, so despite the miniscule player numbers they're still trying to improve the game which is commendable, I do want to see this game get better, I had it on my wishlist for quite a while. I can see this being an excellent co-op game but because of the lack of a playerbase this is a game you NEED friends to play with. The game does let you play with bots and the AI is competent enough, but I only picked up this game because I was told about it from friends and that Gooseman worked on it, who is just a designer according to the Wiki. So I decided to try the game out and stream it to my three friends on Discord to see if at any point the four of us would play the game together, and after an hour and a half of playing, we all came to an agreement that yeah... this game is rough as ♥♥♥♥. I told them to just hold off on buying it. Where do I even start? Well this is an FPS game, so I'll start with the shooting. This game has by far, not even a joke, some of the worst shooting mechanics I think I've ever felt in a shooter game. I'll start with the aiming. Starting off, my hipfire sensitivity was WAY too high, so then I turn it down, but then my ADS sensitivity becomes WAY too slow. But even if I crank up my ADS sensitivity all the way up to 100, it's still too slow, so then I crank my hipfire sensitivity back up again, and guess what? Now my hipfire sensitivity is way too high again. So basically, no matter what I set my sensitivity to, the aiming just feels awful. Combine this with the high recoil no matter what gun you're using, and shooting at enemies genuinely feels like ♥♥♥♥. It's even worse when an enemy has someone hostage and held at gunpoint, which requires you to be precise, and yet, many times I end up killing the hostage on accident, and also, you gotta put multiple rounds into an enemy, even their head, just to kill them. It also doesn't help that this game doesn't have kill markers with enemies that are bullet sponges on the default settings, so most of the time I'm shooting at an enemy but I can't tell if they're dead or not because of the insane amounts of blood and ragoll physics. Sometimes the hitmarkers bug out and I still get them even after I killed someone, so I'm just wasting bullets. Now I gotta talk about the terrible optimization. The first thing I did when I booted up this game was go into the tutorial so I can learn the basics and also adjust my sensitivity, and what happened? I went to lower my sensitivity, and as I was about to exit the pause screen, the game crashed and my PC hard crashed and needed to be restarted which rarely ever happens. And even though I am well above the recommended spec requirements, the game still runs like hot ass at times, I still get frequent studders and frame drops depending on how much is on screen even at 1080p Medium settings, DLSS on Performance Mode, and Nvidia Reflex is set to On. At one point after finishing a mission, out of nowhere for seemingly no reason my FPS dropped down to as low as 10 for a minute. There was even an instance where I was in the shop and purchased a weapon, and after clicking the buy button the game hard froze for a good 15 seconds, I genuinely thought the game crashed again. Just for the record, these are my specs: CPU: Ryzen 7 3800X GPU: GeForce RTX 3060 RAM: 32GB DDR4 And yet if I turn my graphics down to Low, the game's graphics bug out a lot. I get glitchy textures and shadows, and the only option for Anti-Aliasing is SSAO. Overall the game genuinely looks worse than a mobile game when set to Low. This game also has bugs. For example, the game only lets you carry 4 medical syringes, and yet the shop still lets you keep buying them which is what I did thinking I could carry more, so I was literally just wasting money. I've also gotten shot and killed from enemies inside of walls. You get money from completing missions, and then you use that money to buy guns, attachments, throwables, healing items, and armor. The shop itself is fine aside from that one issue, and as you level up you unlock more guns, attachments, and even cosmetics for your officer. The driving? Jank as hell, even after turning the driving sensitivity all the way up. Any little thing that you hit, even if it seems like you can just run over it, just causes your car to come to an immediate stop, not to mention hitting anything can cause the car to swivel and lose momentum. It doesn't help that there are pedestrian vehicles everywhere. The car also tends to get stuck a lot. It reaches a point where it's actually faster to just run to the mission on foot. This is by far the jankiest game I've played in a very long time, it just felt broken in the most important areas. Again, I hope it gets better, and the devs seem passionate about what they're working on, but even for an Early Access game, this game seriously needs work. I would imagine the devs read the reviews so I'm hoping they see this feedback. The shooting and the optimization needs improving more than anything else, because if the shooting feels clunky and unresponsive and the game runs like crap for me, someone who plays quite a lot of shooter games, then I highly doubt it'll be any better for others, especially the people in my own friend group which was the whole reason I picked up this game to begin with. Even on a sale, I would wait on buying this game. If they succeed and the game does end up getting a playerbase then I would recommend it.

ultimately the concept is so phenomenal, and as a huge fan of Battlefield Hardline, I would totally vouch for this game, I wish I really could, but the approach and delivery was abysmal. I can totally excuse jank, most of my favorite games are absolute jank, but Alpha Response has the worst performance imaginable, and playing through it surprisingly makes me dizzy, like I'm actually getting motion sickness from this damn flat screen game. I think it mostly has to do with the stuttering movement on the camera when you look around. I've read that this was developed by the person who created the Counter-Strike mod which essentially made Counter-Strike what it is today. That's major influence and being a part of something bigger than expected, So I'd imagine he would create a more polished experience. Not sure what the engine its running on but it's horrendous. Mind you, I did have fun playing it. It is totally chaotic, but for someone who pretty much started Counter-Strike, this one is nothing but a huge let down and disappointment.

I cant believe it. TacInt 2. Minh Le does it again. As of March 12 2026: You can now Judo slam criminals! This is Democracy Manifest!

Bring back tactical intervention please.... The real of the situation, it runs awful and is very unpolished after 2 years of early access. The concept is fun and would like to see more but I cannot recommend this game.

Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of Tactical Intervention, which Minh Le (the co-creator of the original Counter-Strike) previously worked on. It was introduced to me once when it was still on Steam and I was blown away by how much fun and addictive it is, especially with friends. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to play it as much as I would have liked, and this left a gap in my soul for a long time, which no game could fill. And now, many years later, I quite accidentally stumble upon the recommendation of Alpha Response. When I found out whose studio this game was, I was excited and without thinking twice I purchased the game in early access. And I feel somewhat deceived... So, this is not Tactical Intervention, how I and many others remember it. It is not a sequel. This is only a spiritual heir, a separate game that resembles it which has partially adopted some functions, style and gameplay. Therefore, there is no famous Highway mission, repelling, rolls and many more. And it's dissapointing... Don't get me wrong, that doesn't make it a bad game. It's still a chaotic, dynamic, stupid action-FPS and I truly love it. But at this current stage, it looks and feels more like a stereotypical game labeled "simulator" on Unreal Engine 5 (especially tutorial). Alas, in my opinion, the price is not fair. In your first launch you'll see an expressionless menu in the style of games from the 2010s (not a bad thing tho), where I first chose the tutorial... which I couldn't finish. At the stage of understanding how to steer a car, you can accidently get stuck or roll over, and since there is no reset button, and you don't have any weapon in your hands, you can't do anything about it. Respawning will only break the game completely, so you won't be able to move. Then I created my session, and problems started to reveal themselves one by one. The lighting is very poor, and the shadows are completely broken (especially on Valermo). You walk to the mission point, and you have a solid gray color under your feet, as if the sun is at a perfectly straight angle above you. The situation with interiors is no better, in many rooms there is no such thing as shadows and they are illuminated exactly the same as the street. Reflections are poor, I can only see my hands and weapon. I have no problems with not the most advanced graphics, especially since TI has also never been about visuals, but about action. However, with all there is, the optimization is not good, thanks to all the UE rough edges for that, I guess. I honestly don't understand how such an unstable and low fps can be with such a visual. It's even more strange when the specified system requirements are quite lenient. There are significant issues with the sound effects, they either not play, or they overlap (including reloading, driving, explosions, etc). The dead bots say phrases like "I'm going for cover," which is comical, especially if their heads are gone, but confusing when you're looking for other enemies in the vicinity. No water sound, granades are weak and vehicle SFXs are awful. Can it actually sound more like a car and not a leaf blower screaming in my right ear? WHY DO SILENCED GUNS SOUND SO UNNATURALLY WEIRD AND WONKY?! Like a broken flute or something. If you don't plan on making it more realistic, please, at least make it sound cool, like in action movies (you have a perfect game for it). It just doesn't give that satisfying punch. A friendly AI is not so bad, but the civilians and enemy AI is downright dumb. They can stand still for very long or acting confused until they get eliminated. Very often I could see their limbs clipping through the door, and they shoot me, as if I'm right in front. The static image of the operator with glitch effects appearing in the right corner looks ridiculous and silly (at least make it animated). Very small amount of environment can be broken or damaged. The weapons look weird and low-quality (it's 2026, c'mon). And cars in the city are just objects glued to the floor (annoying when you're driving through the narrow streets). You can only drive those you are given (which is a huge L). Huge number of bugs: everything gets stuck in walls, objects and NPCs appear right in front of your eyes, the drawing range is minimal (you can see every texture loading), cars fly off surfaces (like in a pinball machine), a lot of invisible walls and places where you can easily fall through the map and die, and so on. And my favorite, the one where you need to escort the VIP along the green path, the mark on the map disappears and you fail the mission once the time has run out. I unironically like shooting in the spirit of the previous game. AR is still crazy, and fun as hell (tho a bit slower). There are lots of innovations, such as reviving, drones, the ability to walk in very narrow spaces (f.e., the interior of a bus), which I was personally very impressed with. There is a modest selection of real anti-terrorist organizations, and they actually added dogs back, which is a huge thing today, I respect that. I like the idea of customizing individual body parts and weapon mods, with time and the right direction, I'm sure it can grow into something great. The maps are pretty big and open - perfect for a street shootout and they look nice most of the time. Probably what bothers me the most is that they rejected PVP (which imo made TI the most fun) even as a separate mode, and that you can't play for a criminal faction. Please, consider this not as a negative review, but as an actual feedback. I really wish this game success and want to see it develop and grow. However, for the amount of content that is currently in the game (including two maps), personally, I can't recommend it at this price, even with a discount.

Gooseman's next masterpiece

Worried that you missed out on the extreme batsh|t jank that was 2014's Tactical Intervention? Minh Le thinks so!

I'll support my goat Mr. Minh Le any day, but it's lowkey mid (the differing mouse sensitivity scaling is egregious). It's like an alternate universe Tactical Intervention with some innovative concepts but worse fundamentals.