You are Jones, a 35-year-old soldier sent in to do the necessary dirty deeds,
rescue a guy named Josef Priboi and take out the trash. Imagine running around
an army base, dodging bullets from all and sundry while tactically planning
your movements around in order to kill without trace and achieve your
objectives.
I've had another look at this game since my review brought about a bit
of discussion on the DVDUK mailing list (subscribe at
yahoogroups.com)
as I was originally incapable of controlling both a keyboard AND a mouse for
this type of game. It's not completely without faults though.
Originally, I was really looking forward to this game, since, in my own sadistic
way - strictly when playing computer games only, I must add - there's nothing
quite like lining up your sniper rifle, aiming at the back of an enemy soldier's
head and letting off a few shiny rounds of fire, watch his brains splatter
against the wall and nick his supplies. You'll also be able to hack into
computers, blow up tanks and more... so what's gone wrong?
There's certainly no problem with the graphics. I only got to see the opening
level for reasons that will become clear shortly, but the sparseness of an
army base was perfectly represented and began to give an immersive feel as
I set out to kick bad-guy butt!
The crisp, sharp graphics make it run like the wind on the right system
with high resolution, but I prefer to pipe it through to the TV and the 16Mb
Voodoo 3 3000 AGP allows up to 800x600 resolution - not as good as that shown
on a monitor, but it still looks brilliant on a 32" widescreen set.
A hum in the background, the call-out of the enemy, the sniper fire banging
off the speakers - it all sounds both realistic and fantastic, just everything
I expected.
Although far from perfect, I've learned to control myself a bit better these
days. It's still rather annoying that there isn't the option to rotate your
character with the keyboard. You have to use the mouse while manoeuvering him
in four straight directions with the cursor keys. I'm still occasionally
having to swap hands over between the two movement methods to do certain
tasks, but I'm learning to be ambidextrous, including for the moment when
you have to press 'activate' to climb a ladder, rather than simply
jumping onto it, before using up/down to make your move.
Adding to that, it's no longer particularly disconcerting when the view-point
changes from first-person perspective to the third-person, since when climbing
or descending I now move the mouse around to check whether I'm going to be
shot at.
Finally in the complaints dept., it is still a big problem as there is a
no save game option. If you die during a level (well, not IF, but WHEN), then
it's back to square one! And some of these levels are long and hard (oo-er,
missus!) However, having downloaded a couple of cheats from
pcgameworld.com),
one patch allows access to every level from their respective starts - so you
still can't save *within* a level but it's something at
least - and the other, an "IGI Trainer" gives you infinite health and ammo.
Ok, so I'm cheating, but it's a bloody hard game and I can't be arsed going
through the whole thing again on EVERY level when I'm getting near the end
and a big tank blows a hole in my rear end!
Calming down a little since last time, when I next have a bash at
first-person-shooter/sneakers like Quake III, Soldier of Fortune and
Thief 2: The Metal Age,
or any of their respecting sequels as and when they appear, I will try a
mouse-keyboard combo, but I still maintain that the game's designers should
provide the requested alternative controls that they always have done until
now.
As I'm giving Project IGI more of a chance, it's a good bit of fun, but
not as violent as Soldier of Fortune - since you can't dismember a
body - and it's far too repetitive. Also, as was pointed out to me on the
aforementioned DVDUK mailing list, some of the guards are very intelligent,
such as those who *do* move out of the way when you're firing,
while others are just plain stupid - they stand there waiting for you to
square up to them on the front before smacking you on the nose with the
butt of their rifle - when a simple batch of bullets would've sufficed.
On other occasions, when two enemy soldiers are standing next to each other
and you dispatch of one, why doesn't his colleague even attempt to react?
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
There's certainly no problem with the graphics. I only got to see the opening
level for reasons that will become clear shortly, but the sparseness of an
army base was perfectly represented and began to give an immersive feel as
I set out to kick bad-guy butt!
Calming down a little since last time, when I next have a bash at
first-person-shooter/sneakers like Quake III, Soldier of Fortune and