A few years ago, an interesting (yet almost impossible game to beat)
hit the shelves and redefined the stealth action community, well,
until Splinter
Cell came along. The name of that game was Project IGI:
I’m Going In. It was perhaps the most frustrating game that was out on the
market at the
time. It was a highly praised, yet highly complained about game.
Three years later, the sequel has hit the shelves, published by Codemasters,
Project has been dropped from the title and this game is called IGI
2:
Covert Strike.

The player is cast in the same role as they were in the last game,
David Jones, IGI specialist, former British Special Air Service operator,
and all around bad-ass. This time, Jones is hot on the trail of a
new computer device, a device that could very well start World War
III if left in the wrong hands. After retrieving the device, Jones
is betrayed by two of his
most trusted colleagues, and is sent on a global chase to track them
down, kill them if necessary, but most importantly, get that device.

Set in lash environments, at times, the graphics of IGI
2 are breath
taking. From snow covered peaks in the Former Soviet Union, to the
jungles of the Pacific, these beautiful graphics will leave you astounded
and mesmerized by the astonishing attention to detail. Although,
I must admit, the water effects (at least on the GeForce 4 MX440
card) looked rather, well, solid, which really detracted from the
overall atmosphere.

Speaking of atmosphere, the atmosphere of this game is rock solid.
When tension builds up; the music gets more and more suspenseful,
and in the process spooking the living daylights out of the player,
especially
when trying to be careful not to arouse the suspicions of the guards.
I want to diverge away from all of this for a minute to go off on
a rant. The artificial intelligence in this game is absolutely appalling.
I mean that in the nicest way possible, however, I think appalling
is too strong of a word here. Let’s say that the artificial intelligence
has a hard time making up its mind on whether or not it wants to
be smart or stupid. Here is a good example, in one mission, Jones
is breaking into a research facility in the mountains, armed with
a PSG-1 (a silenced sniper rifle), the only way to get into the research
facility undetected is to resort to some sniping fun. When in the
prone position, at 300+ meters away, a dark object on a white background
is easy to spot, usually anyway. But even then, there
are no guarantees of actually spotting the object in question.

After taking down one guard, with his buddy standing right next
to him, nothing happens. No alarm goes off, and his buddy actually
turns to look at his rapidly cooling corpse and does absolutely nothing.
He even looks in my direction, and does nothing. A few minutes later,
someone comes outside, looks in my direction and fires at me with
an Uzi and kills me. I’m sorry, but nobody is that good of a shot
with an Uzi at that distance. While the Uzi can be fired at 400 meters
per second, it is unlikely that anyone can produce such accurate
aim, especially your run of the mill bad guys fresh from Doctor Henchman’s
Evil Henchman Academy.

Also, some of the weapons don’t seem to kick accurately, I’m not
going to complain about that, but if you want an accurate weapons
portrayal, get Rainbow Six 3. Also, when hit, enemies do not realistically
react to the fact that you just shot them, they are not phased one
bit. The realism is extremely dumbed down in this aspect.

Also, the game seems to have little hiccups in remembering things.
For example, in one mission, after successfully infiltrating a terrorist
compound, I set off an alarm. I didn’t mean to set the alarm off,
it just happened. Anyway, after this alarm went off, guards came
pouring out of a gate that they had opened. I waited for the guards
to disperse and snuck through the wide open gate. After completing
my objectives and trying to escape, I became locked in, just because
I failed to hack in via a keypad. I had to restart the entire mission,
wasting a half hour of my time.
The game has many frustrating bugs like this, even with the patch,
it is still buggy. If you were looking for an adventurous game, the
only adventure you are going to get is an adventure in headaches.

However, if you can handle minor bugs and remember to use everything
that looks useable, this game might be up your alley. At least this
game has good voice acting.

Final Grade: C-

System Requirements:

• Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
• DirectX
  8.1
• 450MHz CPU
• 128MB RAM
• 16-bit Direct
  Sound compliant sound card
• Compatible 3D graphics
  card with 16MB RAM
• 8X CD-ROM
• 800MB HD
  space