This side scrolling action game developed by Vatra Games that tells the story of Sid Morrow’s continued mission to retrieve Gibson and uncover the dangerous secrets looming in the shadows of the Cold War. Trapped behind enemy lines and armed with little more than a knife and your hand-to-hand combat training, you must find a way to survive behind enemy lines and thwart the threat of global destruction.
From there the game goes on side scrolling adventure that will be sure to grab your attention. You are equipped with a knife and given a map to start your mission and when you learn the game play mechanics and just how the AI enemies move you will begin to have loads of fun with the awesome knife kills and assassinations. You can do really cool things like dropping in a whole in the floor or ducking in a shadowy door way to wait for a passing enemy to kill. The combo system really makes for fun kills and entertaining combat. It’s things like that which are the highlights of the game. Other than the really cool assassination kills the game really just breaks down to be another run of the mill side scroller. Luckily the very fun knife play is enough to keep you interested enough to make your way through the game.
Picking up some weapons along the way and fighting mediocre bosses at best, you find that the game still leaves some kind of trace of something behind, because it never really gets old. There are really no mind bending puzzles on the game. Most are climb a ladder, flip a switch. Or sneak through a duct, find a short cut to a switch. The AI is lacking in what I would call being smart, in the lower difficulties. When you start playing higher difficulty levels, the AI makes up for the difference. You find that when playing on normal you may be able to hide in a door and stay hidden even if the AI sees you hide. Try that on hard and they will run down, pull you out and attack you. This change in AI comes in play more so when you get in later levels with para-troopers and rocket guards.
The look of the game may be one of the clinchers in why I had fun at this game even though it has some flaws. It really reminds me of Shadow Complex. Could be the fact that both games utilize the Unreal Engine, but either way it seems to work for the style you are playing. The blood after a knife kill or even the slow motion effect you do when you land a great combo. The environments are pretty well done too. The first level feels cheap and generic, but after breaking into the rest of the game you start to see the level environments change all for the better. Needless to say that it’s fun to look at. This mixed with the easy to pick up and play combat style makes this game loads of fun.
All in all I really enjoyed this game. Even though it’s pretty generic and the plot is about paper thin and the same of pretty much any side scrolling game. The achievements are pretty easy to come by and the games main story is fairly short. The replay value, in my opinion seems to just no coincide with the 800 point price it has listed. Not saying it’s a terrible game, actually the opposite. If this game ever makes it in some sort of deal of the week then it would be worth a pick up. But like most games on the XBLA this one just seems a bit too little for a bit too much.
