24: The Game (PS2)

If I had to ‘nut’ my greatest disappointment with the game right here it could be said to be that, sure, it had urgency but it all lacked credibility in the final wash.

What can I really add to the preview of this game which I did some months back, having now played the game through?? Well not much really upon reflection.

Whilst I enjoyed the game and I think there was elements in there designed to appeal to the season series veterans, I don’t think in the full summary of the play presented it delivered on anything new to the gaming experience worth a rant.

Sure there was the classic ‘Bauer’ elements of cracking, hacking, spying, intercepting, fast driving, coercing a suspect and general gun play (including my favourite of sniping and covering bomb squad or team members under fire);
however nothing seemed to deliver a totally gob-smacking new dimension upon any of these experiences other than reinforcing the shows sense of urgency with their constant change.

This sense of urgency created by the ever changing styles of play and simultaneous character scenarios layered via the ‘season honed’ multi-frame TV production camera play did go towards delivering upon the sense of series synergy, and consequently I re-iterate series fans will respect how this plays out. However to have the last word on this again, it is also the games failing that the styles of play or genre mentioned above can be found better honed elsewhere and the value delivered could not be said to be better via the sum of its parts (sorry season lovers).

2K Games has tried to capture the soul of this gripping teleseries, and true to their hard efforts they have delivered a relevant game version of the series (particularly by filling in gaps in the season series). However on the balance I have to re-iterate from even a lame gamers point of view, that for $90 odd bucks they do not bring much else to the table in any of the genres they pass a glance at in this composite of many.

For example, whilst the car-driving is tempered by a sense of urgency (eg. 5 cops smashing into you at once whilst you are negotiating a tunnel bend or an unfolding earth quake), which is great, the actual driving dynamics and physics are secondary and as a consequence blurs the sense of seriousness of Bauers activities in this almost cartoon like environment (surely Bauer
deserves better respect – well at least for his hard work in ‘Lost Boys’ all those years ago).

Having said all that, the games best asset, if I can find one, had to be its rotation of styles of game play that you were exposed to as agent Bauer or one of the series cast. This sense of role-play or genre play, from third person shooter, acts of stealth, to driver game & “puzzle” skills, for lack of a better term (for bomb defuse, satellite tracking of snipers, lock cracking, phone tracking, tracing live ISP route activities etc.), created a sense of impelling interest that carried you nicely through the game and sure kept it interesting. However as previously mentioned, the fact they fell short of delivering on any one genre in some new or compelling way, as a consequence lacked that sense of credibility to round out the experience that it sorely grappled for.

My pet peeve after several attempts at some points was the suspect interrogations. Whilst I found the first one amusing, I did find the mechanistic attempt to master punching a button when the suspectís heart rate was in the “fluidzone” to get them to spill it all a bit painful should you not be successful and be forced to re-do the process. It was a new element to a game (for my mind) but once played was about all one need to get the picture and move on. Cheers but maybe less in future. I did however like the relatively tight dialogue tempo changes that followed your every click of that process.

Some other stand out peeves I guess could be down the target locking and camera view route. Whilst I liked the ‘lock to target’ feature for shooting, at times I found it frustrating to place myself on corners for sneak views then rotating out to a ‘lock to target’shot. Sure I am lazy at best, but I felt if I didnít hold my camera views correct or the corner dictated a certain position to peak a view then you were left with very odd blind spots in critical moments and had to disengage from the peak view to rotate to a view that would allow a target lock with your weapon. Again sure I am being lazy but these two elements of the game I figured was part of the general play sense and could have been handled better to create a more ‘Baueresque’ feel about the strategic corner-by-corner clearing (had the two actions available worked together better). I was found often presenting Bauers better half to the enemy on several occasions trying to untangle myself from my placements (whilst copping some lead for my troubles).

Other elements I found frustrating was my fuddling when trying to pick up a players ammo when they have been downed; whereby I tended to be suddenly found to be stupidly locked up trying to pick up their body by mistake and having to drop them whilst again copping some lead. I am not sure why that
kept on happening but was sure frustrating and could have been styled better from a control/action point of view.

What else can I wrap up with – some of the multi camera views were verging on irritating and distracting when entering a room under fire; some of the AI was dumb and could be easily fooled into forgetting you were there by walking stealthily back around the corner – the usual gambit of stuff and these guys did not disappoint by delivering on that level either.

Having said all that, good try 2K, I can’t totally bag your efforts as they were there in abundance for the season pundits. I guess it is just a sense of what could be that hounds this reviewer for the fall-through and potential of the offering (perhaps in another incarnation on the PS3).

You need to be logged in to add comments... Login Now

There are 0 user comments