Overall this is a pretty fun game and is worth a play if you are looking for a doom-like first person shooter that has a little more substance then “run around and blast the crap out of everything.” The missions are engaging, though sometimes the reasoning behind them is a bit vague. They range from stealing to assassination to sabotage, and do a fairly good job or varying the game play. I haven’t finished the game yet but so far it has managed not to get boring.
The only downsides to this game really are a certain number of small quirks and idiosyncrasies that were really unavoidable at the time. For one, this game looks pretty good as far as doom engine games are concerned, but then again the doom engine was not particularly high powered. This game, being one of the last released using the original doom engine, gets a little overambitious with the graphics at some points. The result of this is that the designers tried to incorporate objects that the game engine couldn’t really draw well and it can at times be hard to make out what some things are supposed to be. For example, some of the switches or key access panels were designed in much
higher detail then in doom, but if you stand anywhere but immediately adjacent to them, they have a tendency to get pixilated and simply blend in to the texture of the wall, causing you to wander aimlessly about a room for a number of minutes before realizing that a switch was there all along.
The inventory system is ingenious and well adapted to the game, with objects being easy to access and use basically all of the time. One unfortunate aspect of this game is the somewhat awkward control scheme (for example jump is “a”) which cannot be changed and sometimes is a bit of a nuisance when you are required to do a number of things in rapid succession.
The game uses “Missions” which are like levels except in one continuous realm. The missions are engaging but the objectives can at times be troublesome. For instance, a mission at some point in the game may involve speaking to some operative, only you, not knowing the future may have already accidentally killed said operative in a previous mission. As a result of this, saving a game can at times be utterly useless. That said, the game forgives you to some degree if you let yourself be killed, where it will return you o the previous point your mission objectives changed and you were still going along with the storyline. This means having to play some missions twice until you get them right, but it’s really not that much of problems, as the missions are not very long.
In summary, this game is clearly not perfect, but it is a heck of a lot of fun. It’s definitely worth your time if you are looking for an interesting blend of action and adventure.
