When you play the game it's easy to see what was cut out in order to bring it down to the shorter running time. For one thing you almost never see things from the perspective of the bad guys, which is something you see on the show nearly every episode. The problem with cutting this out is that we never really get a firm understanding on why all of this is happening, they decided to completely ignore turning the villain into a real person, he's just an over-the-top character that has decided to cause damage to L.A.
Another aspect from the show that has been changed is just how much stuff is actually going on. On TV each 24 episode is dense with connecting plots and personal strife, but this game has toned all of that down. This story has really been shaved down to the bare essentials, literally just the plot points that keep this story racing ahead. Some gamers might not care about all of the character tangents and misleading signals the show is so good at, but considering how well the rest of the story elements are presented it's a shame they didn't go all the way.
One reason everything feels so much like the show is because nearly every actor lends their voice. Hearing Kiefer Sutherland bark out orders and announce what time it is before each episode brings a lot of authenticity to the project, when you're in the middle of a call to CTU and have Tony and Michelle guiding you it really feels like what you would expect from a game based on 24. Not every line of dialogue is perfect (sometimes Keifer sounds confused by what is supposed to be going on around him), but everybody gives it their all and helps to provide tension to an already exciting story.
And I can't forget the sound, either. The sound effects in the cinemas are fantastic, capturing every sound of CTU perfectly. Heck, even the music is appropriate and well-timed, again making you feel like you're right in the middle of another exciting 24 adventure. I do have some problems with the in-game sound effects (such as the fact that it barely makes a sound when you punch somebody), but by and large 24's sound mix is pretty darn good.
Unfortunately the graphics are something of a mixed bag. On one hand the cinemas look amazing, every character's look is surprisingly close to the original show. There are moments in these cinema sequences where it's almost hard to tell the difference between the game and the show, especially when there are multiple screens at once showing you four different events going on at that moment in time. But once you get out of these cut scenes you get something that is kind of ugly.
Nobody is going to complain about Jack's model, he's large and has a nice attention to detail, but what is around him is somewhat disappointing. It's not that the in-game graphics are particularly bad; it's that the graphics engine never feels like it is keeping up. The game suffers from more than a few frame rate issues, some of which are so bad that you'll wonder if your system is starting to give. Another problem is that the animation never looks quite right; it has a very odd look that keeps it mimicking the TV show perfectly.
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