I’m Going In!
Project IGI was a reasonable success back in 2000. A stealth shooter developed by Innerloop Studios and published by Eidos, it was the first game to offer massive sprawling outdoor locations with 3D mountains and hillsides that if you so wanted, could be climbed. It wasn’t without its faults however. Terrible AI, dodgy interiors and bad textures meant it was a game with limited experience.
March 2003 sees Innerloop, this time teaming up with Codemasters to bring us the sequel; IGI-2: Covert Strike.
Lets play!
You play the role of David Jones, Ex-SAS now under the recruitment of the Institute of Geotactical Intelligence (IGI). The game sees you travelling to many different remote locations like high mountainous bases etc with stealth being very much the order of the day. You’ll have access to various weapons and gadgets to assist you in the fight against terrorism like the G-17SD Silenced Glock Pistol, Binoculars and Thermal Imaging Device. They’ll all become the stable workhorse for your operations. You will of course have other ‘toys’ to play with like the M16/M203 Assault rifle with combined grenade launcher and the RPG-7 reloadable launcher among a host of other SMG’s and sniper rifles, not to mention all the enemy weapons that you’re able to acquire on site. Perhaps the most essential tool that makes a come back from the original is the Map Computer. This small screen provides a direct uplink to the IGI satellite giving you vital recon on enemy patrol routes and general layout of enemy installations as well as giving you the means to save your game progress. You’ll have to be careful though as you can only save three times before the battery of your Map Computer runs out.
The HUD in IGI-2 has a Thief / Splinter Cell like metre to tell you how exposed you are. If you’re running around in the middle of an enemy base shooting off grenades, you can bet that the metre will read dangerously high and you’ll soon be on your way to your chosen afterlife. Keep to the shadows while crawling from place to place, avoiding cameras and the metre will stay low, indicating that you’re being as quiet and stealth like as a proverbial mouse.
Another particularly interesting feature of IGI-2 is the ability to shoot through certain thin walls and doors, and let me tell you, this isn’t exclusive to you. In one mission I happened to make a little too much noise and some guards came running. I thought I’d try an old trick of running into a small room and waiting for the guards to come pouring through the doorway making it easy to take them down. I was in for a shock! Instead of following a predictable path I’ve been accustomed to in FPS games, they proceeded to shower the partition wall of the room I was in with bullets. You don’t have to use your imagination to tell you who came off worse.
The missions are a basic run of the mill kind of variety. Infiltrate a base and steel top-secret technology or plans and escape to an extraction point etc. There are occasional twists thrown into the story but generally you’ll be very familiar with what IGI-2 offers.
Enemy AI has had quite a rework over the original and it certainly needed it. The enemy now responds very well (sometimes a little too well) to sounds that you make meaning you need to be very light-footed if you’re to stay undetected. They’re also very good shots and make some intelligent manoeuvres to avoid your own gunfire, like running behind objects, flanking you, throwing flashbangs into rooms before assaulting and going prone to hide their profile. Their flashbang skills in particular are actually very good and I’ve been caught off guard a number of times to the point of where I have a healthy respect for them. They will work together to try and take you down as well. They do have their shortcomings however. They’re hearing seems to be so good that they can hear through several thick walls even when you’re simply walking. The only noise they won’t hear is if you’re crouching or prone, so you’ll be spending a lot of time in these positions. They also have an uncanny aim with surprisingly unusual weapons from unbelievable range. I’m talking about taking you down from 200 metres with a shotgun round to the head, something I don’t particularly appreciate after spending half an hour infiltrating a base. There were some cases where they would dive down onto the ground in a prone position, just out of sight behind a small hillock yet their bullets still seemed to penetrate the earth on a direct course for my head. While I appreciate the effort that’s been put into the AI, I do feel it needs some further tweaking in the interests of gameplay and realism.
Looks aren’t everything
Graphically speaking, I’d have to describe IGI-2 as ‘adequate’. There were very few (if any) scenes that forced me pause and appreciate. There are no curves to speak of and the design of the various bases you’ll encounter while sometimes interesting and varied, are also very blocky and just too square. The game engine doesn’t seem to handle enclosed indoor areas too well either. For example, crates and cabinets appear to stutter and tear as you walk past or strafe near them. The indoor scenes also suffer from some of the same problems the original game had. In most cases they’re just too sparse and similar and don’t contain enough detail. Head outdoors however and things are very different. You’ll often be inserted quite a way from your objective in most cases and as a result you’ll have to walk some way before getting to where you need to be. Trekking across hills and mountains for a few minutes to then discover an enemy base in the valley, a good 600m away is quite a sight and gives you an idea of the scope of the levels.
The hills are alive with the sound of music
Sonically, IGI-2 has some very nice touches. The weapon samples sound great as well as the different terrain like gravel and snow, all of which ‘crunch’ very realistically under your feet. The music isn’t too shabby either! It’s nothing particularly memorable but it accompanies the setting of the game very well. As I mentioned before, there are some issues with guards being able to hear through several walls and ceilings but other than that, the use of sound has been executed very well.
Multiplayer
Project IGI received a lot of criticism for not having a multiplayer game and this is something that Innerloop have addressed for the sequel.
Fans of Half-Life’s Counter-Terrorism modification, ‘Counter-Strike’ will be in good company with IGI-2’s multiplayer game. What you have is a massive map where one team has a series of objectives to complete (like hacking a computer or deactivating the security systems) and/or a bomb to plant, while the other team has to defend against the other team completing those objectives. Because of the size of the maps there are several spawn points and ‘shops’ where you can buy equipment like grenades and weapons ala Counter-Strike. Another nice touch is the way in which you re-spawn. When you die you can choose to re-spawn immediately however it will cost you money to do this. The longer you wait, the more the cost to spawn reduces until eventually it will be free. It’s a nice feature that adds another level to the game. Do you spawn now to help your team and pay $600? Or wait until the prices drops? As far as multiplayer games go, its not revolutionary but the fact that the game provides huge outdoor environments to play in, offers something a little different.
Unlike Counter-Strike, IGI-2 seems to suffer from some net-code issues. Sometimes I would unload a clip of bullets into an enemy no more than 3 metres away and manage to hit nothing but air. Again, Some of the weapons suffer from some balancing issues (namely the shotgun). I also found that occasionally I couldn’t spawn back into the game at all and the only remedy I could find was to quit the server. That said its very early stages for multiplayer and these are all issues that can be addressed in future patches I hope. Although there are no vehicles to control, there is quite a bit of scope for some good team based play. Throw in some truly massive maps and high-tech gadgetry and you have a multiplayer game with a lot of potential providing some of the small niggles are sorted out.
Conclusion
IGI-2 is a massive improvement over the original and I have no doubt that fans of Project IGI will love it. It just lacks the polish and sheen that we’ve come to expect from classic games and as such I cannot put it in that category. The levels, while massive and sprawling, lack a certain sense of realism with the boxy buildings and sparse rooms. The AI is vastly improved and challenging but also suffers from some faults. The added multiplayer feature is good fun and offers something different with its outdoor locations but will need some support if it’s going to grow online to challenge the likes of Counter-Strike and Battlefield 1942.
At the end of the day IGI-2 is a good game. It’s improved over its predecessor but also brings with it a few bugs. It’s not quite the classic I’d hoped for but nevertheless it’s good fun. The question is how will it compete against other stealth action games like Splinter Cell? (Review coming soon!)
Pros
Improved AI
Great use of sound
Huge maps with impressive 3D terrain
Included multiplayer isn’t bad
Cons
AI has some bugs
Interiors lack realism and detail
Buggy multiplayer netcode in places
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PC Games
