Title: Cold War

Date: 06.17.2006

Genre: Adventure / Action

Platform: Xbox

Developer: Dreamcatcher

Publisher: Dreamcatcher

INTRO

Cold war is, as you may have already guessed, a game about championship golfing, involving... Oops! Sorry, no. Let's try that again shall we? Cold War is an espionage game which takes place in Russia sometime around the mid to late 80's. You are Mathew Carter sarky American journalist ,who, having Pulitzers on his mind, casually waltzes slap bang in to the middle of a conspiracy hatched by a mad ( in both senses of the word ) Russian spymaster. You have to save your skin. And the whole Soviet Union too, but that's a bit secondary really. I like a man who has his priorities straight.

STORY

Not too bad I suppose. The game does throw a few surprises your way, and anybody who knows their history will get a few laughs out of it (ok, maybe not then). But overall it's nothing you haven't seen before. In fact, barring a few moments, it all seems a bit simplistic; not the strongest point of the game.

GAMEPLAY

Again, a mixed bag. Game mechanics are pretty simple and straightforward you'll get the hang of 'em no time. Controls are relatively smooth and the interfaces are intuitive. Which is just as well really since the tutorial leaves quite a bit to guesswork. The big selling point of this game is that your character has the ability to cobble together gadgets of all sorts from the odds and ends he finds littered around the place. Mac, meet Sam, Sam this is Mac. You get the idea. Any way, it's all quite good fun building these things and watching the Spetznaz (Russian equivalent of Delta, Seals, SAS, etc..) run afoul of your homemade mines and sundry gadgets you whip up (although most of them are perfectly useless to be frank), and it does add a dimension to the game. The other much touted gadget is the X-ray camera, very well implemented actually. You'll find yourself using it quite a bit.

The menu's are clear, concise, could have done with a bit of gloss but you won't have problems getting gunned down while changing weapons or such. The game does tend to lag a bit if and when a large firefight takes place, but you can save at any point so that counteracts the frustration of getting killed because the game stutters (plus, if you get in to large firefights in stealth games, chances are you're dead anyway). The AI is a bit of a puzzler. At times the enemies have near-superhuman reflexes and aim, at others they couldn't hit an elephant stuck in a corridor. They are however uniformly blind and deaf. The limit of their ability seems to be take cover and fire back. Otherwise there is not much interactivity with the environment, and where in heaven's name is the jump function? Christ, here you are mild mannered reporter, scourge of the KGB, regular MacGyver, crack shot with an AK-47, and you can’t jump. The game does sort of tend to ask you to get over logic pretty often.

GRAPHICS

Not much to say, all quiet on the northern front. Competently and at times brilliantly done. There are little details that really let the whole down though. Not enough character models, same locations used many times and you look a bit of a twit when you run. The cut scenes are cell-shaded XIII style and suit the mood of the game quite well once you get used to them.

SOUND

The title music sound's like a 1920's gangster movie soundtrack. You expect a guy called Vinnie to pop up at any minute wearing his uncle's suit. None of the music is Russian sounding, and you won't be humming it for months to come, then again you won't rip your ears off to avoid it. Speeds up during action slows down otherwise, you know the drill.

REPLAYABILITY

About 8-10 hours first time, can't see any reason to replay it, apart to see if Vinnie really does turn up. There's nothing to unlock. nothing, nada. There's an XBox live option on the main menu but I have no idea what it's for; I can't really see it being much fun for a deathmatch.

CONCLUSION

Worthy effort though not quite up to the competition still gets a reasonable score because it's basically fun and worth spending a little time on. It really isn't long enough to get boring. If you're looking to buy a stealth game go with the Splinter Cell's. Guaranteed value.

Game Score

7.8

Reviewed By: Contributed