Tuesday 15 January, 2008

Summary:
This game is essentially a main character, “Snake”, that is a secret military agent for the US performing top secret missions during the cold war. The object of the game is to be noticed as little as possible and at all costs not be detected by the Russians. Many of the missions have to do with kidnapping/saving Russian or American scientists or destroying artillery bunks or military posts. In addition, there is a more complicated plot having to do with the same game versions one and two. These extra characters add a few plot twists.

“Gameplay”
While certainly not hard, this game was very challenging because of my inexperience at the art of shooting people. Even gathering fruit, normally an easy task was geared for those with good aim because instead of climbing the tree, I had to shoot at it, which in itself took a good five minutes. My emotional state, though glad to harm communists, was still a little reluctant to shoot people. The only part that saved me, in fact, was the fact that my gun was a tranquilizer and didn’t actually kill anyone.

The characters were perhaps the most interesting part of the game. Part James Bond, part Call of Duty, the characters are also part fantasy. There are some characters, for instance, which can control electricity, hornets and even visibility. In this historical game, that was a surprising twist.

My only complaint about the game is that the narration was often long winded. Even though the plot was interesting, I found myself very bored after the 10th interruption and it didn’t even stop there. Some characters I skipped through and wasted a lot of time that I could have been playing.

Overall, I enjoyed the game despite the long interruptions and killing people. The best part about it, mass-market wise is that it’s also somewhat historically accurate. I like knowing that I’m not totally wasting my time when I play video games and this game did the trick.

“Design”
The design of the game was very interesting and somewhat realistic. The best parts, graphically, were the narrated parts with real footage from the cold war and the beginning where they did a long song in a Bond theme. It was beautiful and a little reminiscent which gave it some integrity.

The plot and random-ness of the game was fantastic and very suspenseful. However, this was my first time playing it and I heard from several other people that the more you play it, the more predictable it is. However, you can usually choose so many different missions that you never have to play the same way twice, in fact that’s impossible.

An interesting and slightly annoying touch is that when spotted, the game alerts you and instead of being able to complete the mission and get out of danger, the alarm doesn’t let you do anything but hide and kill. So if you’re collecting something, someone or something else, you can’t do it for a whole minute and it’s really annoying.

First off, there were supposed to be two entries. In addition, there isn't much talk of the game design, short of there being long-winded cutscenes and a tranquilizer gun. More elaboration on how the game plays and why it works/doesn't work is needed.


- David Seagal (Grader)