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Dom Robinson reviews
Activision
In typical covert agency style, you play John Mullins, a military consultantworking for the “Shop”, starting in the streets of Prague, before going on toColumbia, Kamchatka and Hong Kong and you get to blow holes in people withgrenade launchers, sniper rifles and the OICW weapon system.
Talking figures, there are 25 weapons, 55 single-player missions, 20 multi-playermaps for those with Xbox Live and also a random-mission generator for bothsingle- and multi-player modes.
So, where does it all go wrong? Shortly after starting a game up, unfortunately.I looked forward to creeping round the streets of Prague to rescue a dignitary,coming up against the baddies and shooting them in the head.
However, the graphics really don’t feel like they’ve come on at all in thethree years since I played the first game on the PC. The detail is reallylacking. Just go up to a stationary car or the window in a wall and see howblurry it gets, just like the original 3dfx cards. This really escaped qualitycontrol and gives a bland appearance to the proceedings. It’s also ridiculouslydark and if you’re in such an area and don’t have your night vision goggles tohand then you’re going to start feeling bored as you try to fumble around.
Sonically, while there’s some nice creepy footsteps all around you at times,you know what to expect from the gunfire and jumping about on a metal floorproduces the bog-standard clanking sound I’ve no wish to hear again. Can wehave some variety please?
Gameplay-wise, it’s uninspired. You have to unlock gates just like theJames Bondtitles by simply holding a button down while it does the honours.
The game also makes the Xbox’s DVD-ROM drive power down/up several times in a rowwhile the training officer is talking, causing his voice to break up. This alsohappens during the game too, which dips the sound more often than a “BigBrother Live” programme and is really annoying. Why does it need to accessit so much?
There’s also lots of pointless doors you can’t open – just likeMedal of Honour: Frontline.On the plus side, though, you can happily dismember bodies by shooting themendlessly, which is great fun when you crack a skull apart.
Overall, this is far from aHitman 2-beater.It’s fun for a while, and I could make myself go through all the missions but there’sso many more games out there which are much better. For those with Xbox Live,go can take a trip down memory lane with the usual Deathmatch, Capture The Flagand other online modes, but, again, go for other games which are a lot moreentertaining.If you’re going to release a sequel to a game that’s three years old, thenupdate it accordingly, don’t leave it looking like it was also made threeyears ago.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.