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Dom Robinson reviews
THQ
Your team of soldiers drops in to infiltrate a compound and what you want inparticular is just beyond that wall in front of you… but how to get past it?If you’ll remember the “Geo-Mod” technology from thefirst gamethen you’ll remember that if there’s an obstacle, blow it out of the way asviolently as possible – just shoot, blast or bomb the fuck out of it for aslong as it takes.
I try to sneak through the wall but the enemy’s raining firebombs down on mewith startling accuracy. I shoot one bad guy in the head and take refuge in asmall sheltered area… but not for long because those firebombs don’t get ontoo well with walls…
The world’s gone to rack and ruin, not because Tony Blair’s in charge, butbecause of Chancellor Victor Sopot – imagine Hitler controlling “1984”. Youjoin the mission to put him out of our misery as “Alias”… No, not an engagingAmerican TV series brutally hacked apart by Channel 4 “Angel”-style to fit theteatime slot for kids, but it’s your position as a demolitions expert amongsta team of six, the rest being Molov, Repta, Shrike, Tangier and Quill, eachpossessing unique attributes and specialties.
There’s plenty of weapons to choose from, such as grenades, dual pistols,dual machine pistol (ooh, yes!), assault and sniper rifles, a rail gun anda grenade launcher. You know what to expect from a first-person-shooter (FPS)but while the game feels a bit more plot-driven, when it comes to battles thereseems to be too much going on – just endless shooting without enough time tosit and solve puzzles or take baddies out cleverly from different positions,just too many onslaughts as opposed to spreading them out a bit.
The graphics are a slight improvement on the original game and move fast, butI do get the feeling that an Xbox release would have the edge. As I type (Sept2002) I don’t see one on the schedules but I can hope.
One gripe I have is that when you throw grenades or rockets, not everyone in thevicinity gets blown apart. Kill someone in a door, but the guy hiding just tothe left of it won’t die because you couldn’t see him at the time, even thoughin reality he’d be sawdust.
Another is that reloading weapons takes too long, especially as you run out ofammo and then it cycles through the others you have, checking to see how muchis left in those. Takes ages and you get shot to pieces as a result!
The soundtrack is great, like an electronica theme from a US TV stealth/dramaseries. All the typical explosion noises are back and as loud as ever, butit loses a point here as it’s basically the same thing over and over again.
The multiplayer aspect is a bit of fun, but it’s far from a Quake 3-beater.Never mind, I’m always bloody hopeless at those anyway.
Overall, this is fun but it is really just more of the same, with the onlything letting it down being that it is rather too relentless, making it likethe computer game equivalent ofBlack Hawk Down.I did enjoy the gunship section a bit later on in the game, but when upagainst a sort-of Mechwarrior baddie it was no contest and I was no competition,sadly.
PLEASE NOTE: This is a look at the preview version of the game, for whichsome of the elements will be due to change before the final version is releasedon November 15th 2002.
This page: Copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.
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.