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Developer: SCEE
Publisher: 2K Games
Genre: Adventure
Region: NTSC
Format:
Release Date: 28 Feb 06
User Rating
10 (1 vote) -
- Coverting a trully engaging and action-packed TV show should have been a no-brainer, but sadly so are the AI and controls in the game.
More Screens (15 total)
Overview
Unlike movies, it is not very often that a TV series gets translated into a video game. Why that is I am not exactly sure, today we are going to talk about one of the most popular shows on television. No, it's not Lost, but instead is 24: The Game from 2K Games and SCE Studios Cambridge that tries to capitalize on a very successful action packed TV series. What were the results? Read our full review to find out!
Gameplay
Right off the bat, when you put 24: The Game into your PS2 you are going to instantly realize that this is 24. The developers of this game have obviously put a lot of focus in on this game to try and make sure that it follows a typical episode of 24 and the story of the game follows right on course. The game at first feels like your watching the show with the game starting at 6AM with Jack Bauer ready to go off and save the world from a boat parked in LA which supposedly is carrying chemical weapons. This story evolves like all episodes of 24 and the game really just branches off from there. I have to say that the developers managed to really capture the essence of 24 right out of the gate, with just a great storyline that is just as good as one of the TV episodes.
So 24: The Game starts out strong, with what I would consider a very true to the TV series style story. Now the big question is can the gameplay follow suit? And my simple answer to that is no. Right after the opening cut scene, I was convinced that 24: The Game was going to be a great game, but then you start playing and you realize wow the controls in this game are terrible. When you sit down and play a game, you can tell within a few minutes whether the controls are going to be good or not, and it was obvious that there was some real flaws in the controls of 24. I found myself right away having trouble adjusting to the inconsistent sensitivity levels, and frequently just being at odds with the controls when executing certain moves. When you begin fighting the controller and not the bad guys, that is not a good thing.
For the most part, 24: The Game is a third person shooter that offers a lot of different views of action. I say this because there are a lot of different avenues in which you will go through 24: The Game, which is the developer's idea of adding a lot of variety in the mission types. For the most part though the majority of the game is having you shooting up the bad guys. Granted there are some stages that require some degree of stealth, but it's mostly just run and gun gameplay. This at first is a good time, but after a while you can see some other flaws, including the fact that the AI is just dead to the world. This makes the experience a little less challenging then it needed to be, and brings down the realism attempted to be portrayed by the game.
By far my favorite part about 24: The Game is the sniper missions, which were scattered throughout the game. I found these to be the most comprehensive missions and also the most interesting. Then the game throws at you some mini games, which unfortunately are just downright boring and don't offer much of an experience at all. In fact I was getting so frustrated later on in the game because these mini-games break up any sort of momentum build up by the action sequences. In the end 24: The Game is just not a very entertaining experience. On paper you would thing a game based on the TV series would be a sure fire winner, but in the end 24: The Game is full of a bunch of problems that you couldn't even manage to fix in 24 hours.
Graphics
The visual quality in 24: The Game is what I would consider a bit below average. I look at 24: The Game and I see a game that quite possibly could have looked good, had they spent more time on this game. First off the character models just look a little plain and a bit lacking in terms of detail. The environments are running on the same sort of path, with just a moderate appeal but still needing some detail to help out the game's cause. In the end it's not the character models or the environments that hurt the games visual strength. It is the animation, which feels rugged and nowhere near as fluid as you would hope. In the end the visuals have the ability to be good but have some underlying issues that hold it back.
Fun Factor
I am not the biggest 24 fan out there, but when I remember to tune in whenever I can. Unfortunately if I had the choice I would probably never play 24: The Game again. When you look at this game on paper it has all of the makings to be a game that excels. You can see the developers had plenty of ideas to work with, but they never managed to make any of these ideas come to life in an entertaining manner. Even if you are a big 24 fan the only thing that I found enjoyable about this game was the story, but you can easily watch the new episodes of the show and be just as satisfied.
Overall
As much as I wanted 24: The Game to be a fun experience, the end result was nothing like that. I just never found myself enjoying this game, because it never managed to sustain that earlier impact of the slick presentation with a decent control or consistent pacing. 24: The Game is extremely rough around the edges, and this in turn makes the experience frustrating and uninteresting, which is a shame for such a fine and novel show. In the end even the biggest 24 fans should probably shy away from this game.
- Gameplay
5.0 - Graphics
6.0 - Fun Factor
5.0 - Overall
5.0
