Thankfully the mission structure and variety has vastly improved. You’ll engage in interesting missions like assassinations as well as search and rescue missions. Though the game often encourages a stealthy approach to the levels, you can at times charge in guns ablazing. Some missions, however, run the “you get detected now you fail you rotten bastards” gamut. Though they provide a rather adequate challenge they do more to disrupt the flow of the game rather than help move it along. It’s like this, one moment you’re kicking tons of ass and going “Dude, I rock! I’m a f-ing killing machine!” The next moment you’ll be forced to move slowly and act with stealth and caution. If you’re a full-blooded male then your adrenaline will most likely be pumping with the force of jackhammer. Then all of a sudden, the game tells you to slow it down a bit, essentially hurdling you into a concrete wall. I’m talking missions where even running will cause you to be detected, thus forcing you to restart the mission. Go out and play a nice rough game of tackle football, now try helping your wife pick flowers out of the garden. It just ain’t gonna happen. It’s a shame that these interruptions occur because the majority of the levels are fun, imaginative and intense.
Though the game has been improved, that clunky interface from its bastard cousin still remains. Selecting what you want becomes an un-necessary chore and you can forget about utilizing it in midst of a battle. Changing weapons requires you to hold Q, scrolling the mouse wheel to what you want and then letting go of the Q key. This is fine and all but the action keeps revolving around you while this is going on. Of course the selection menu resides at the top right corner of your screen so your eyes will also be taken off of the action. It would have been nice had Eidos paused the game every time the gamer wished to select a different item or weapon. You can right click to change weapons but that causes another interface to pop up and disrupt the flow. Can you imagine playing
No One Lives Forever 2 and having to pause the game every time you wished to change weapons? Most of the levels require stealth so you’ll have to conceal your weapon and manually withdraw it to defend yourself. At times you’ll be detected by an enemy troop as you hastily run past him. Afterwards you can expect to be helpless as this solitary enemy reins fire upon you as you frantically search through your inventory for a weapon. Quite a stark contrast from the 50-man killing machine that you were just a few moments ago eh?
Eidos’ has designed an engine that is an enigma of some sorts. I noticed quite a bit of blocky architecture that really shouldn’t be present in a game of this day and age. Cars and vehicles look like they were made out of Legos and the buildings and objects are rather blocky and altogether forgettable. Most of the objects that populate the levels look generic and bland, every item in the game looks interchangeable and if they were to be removed, I’m sure they wouldn’t really be missed. On the other end, characters look great while their animations are a bit under par. 47, in particular, runs quite oddly and at times, you’ll see some movements that could have benefited from a few more frames of animation. There are some nice lighting effects where multiple light sources will cast multiple real time shadows. You’ll see your shadow warp over different terrain and objects in a very impressive visual treat. Eidos should be commended, however, for creating an engine that is capable running on low to mid range machines.
If you have 4 or more speakers and a sound card capable of EAX, you’ll definitely be in for a treat. All of the sounds are separated through the different channels, so if someone is fire at you from the rear you can be sure that your ears will instinctively pick it up. The same goes for foes that are above or below you. There are some nice effects that just have to be heard to be believed. Firing a sniper rifle doesn’t just result in a simple sound and distant echo. You’ll hear the sound resonate all around you, migrating from the rear speakers to the front speakers to simulate the sound that the rifle makes when one’s head is pressed against the side of the gun. After the gun is fired you’ll treated to an awesome audio effect as the sound echoes throughout whichever environment you happen to be in, whether you’re in a confined space or the great outdoors, you can be sure that you’ll hear a sound that is true to its real life counterpart. It’s to see that a developer is taking full advantage of the recent advances in the audio field.
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