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	IGI 2: Covert Strike
	Developer: Innerloop Publisher: Codemasters Genre: First-Person Shooter Players: 1-16 (+) Similar To: Project IGI: I'm Going In Rating: Mature Published: 05 :05 : 03 Reviewed By: Kevin Weiser Overall: 5 = Average

Screenshots

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Intro
I missed the boat on the first IGI, but I heard it was a pretty cool game so I was pretty excited to receive IGI 2: Covert Strike. I hadn't played a good tactical sneaker since, well, Metal Gear Solid. At first glance, IGI 2 delivers everything it promises. Large environments, intense tactical sneakery (I'm George W. Bushing here (Yay. A political joke. I haven't heard enough of those lately -ED)), and pretty graphics. I really enjoyed the first few levels of the game, but after more play some glaring problems surfaced. In the end, I gave up on the game out because of some frustrating design decisions.

Gameplay: 4/10
The basic premise to IGI and IGI 2 is fairly straightforward. Your employers send you into insanely dangerous situations alone, and they expect you to come out alive and with your objective complete. Pretty typical for a videogame, I'd say. I wish there was something of a training ground or some way to get used to how the game works, because getting thrown into the fire so quickly makes for a pretty harsh first couple of games. After a bit of trial and error, I was able to successfully sneak my way through most of the first couple levels. I had quite a bit of fun in these early levels, there was just the right mix of action and sneaking.

It wasn't until the third level that the big problems started rearing their ugly head. At one point the player is supposed to sneak into this house and steal some documents. That's all well and good, I got all the way into the house, but the room I needed to get into had a guard right on the other side of the door. This particular guard had VERY GOOD hearing, and could even hear me switch weapons on the other side of the door. There is quite literally no way to get into this room without being seen. The main problem here is if just one guard cries out a warning, it quickly spreads throughout the entire base, and before you know it the whole base is after you. Now this in and of itself is not the problem. I like the realism that once alerted, guards for the most part STAY alerted and continue to run around and look for the intruder. My problem is with how they going about doing it, which is to say: like retards. Take the previous example. I open the door, the guard cries out (sniping him from outside doesn't work either, he cries out as he dies, and you HAVE to get into that room), and I quickly run to a small shadowy niche behind the stairs. And I sit…and wait…and wait. The guards run around, opening doors, chucking grenades in (they seem to have unlimited grenades), then leaving and not even bothering to check the room. I understand AI is hard to program, but would a methodical room to room search be so hard to program in? Sometimes they would just stand there, chucking grenades into a room for no apparent reason. It was amusing at first, but after a while I got bored. The guards are also pretty stupid about bodies on the ground too. Sure, they'll freak out if they find one, or ten, or 30, but will never put two and two together. Once the alarm has been tripped, it's best to find a good spot to snipe and wait until all the enemies wander by. At one point I had a stack of 30 bodies in a certain hallway that was an obvious kill-zone, and it stayed that way until all the enemies on that level were dead. Not once did they figure it out. Of course, you're SUPPOSED to not have to do that, and sneak past most of the enemies, but from what I saw, that didn't seem possible.

By this point, my silenced pistol was nearly out of ammo, which brings me to my biggest beef with IGI 2. The designers deliberately stack the odds against you in unrealistic ways to make the game more challenging. One thing I noticed early on when I ran out of ammo for my silence glock 18. I had to switch to my unsilenced MP5A2. The first problem I realized was that these guns use the same ammo, so I should be able to switch out the THREE HUNDRED or so shots I have /w my mp5 into my Glock. Grrr, annoying, but forgivable. Then I thought on it some more. Wait a second, why did they give me this MP5 in the first place? H&K makes a version of the MP5 that's the most silent submachine gun in the world. The sound of the action cycling is louder than the actual sound of the gun firing. Would a lone operative sneaking his way into a highly fortified complex want a gun that's THAT silent, has a large clip capacity, and is more accurate than a pistol? Of course not! Using a silenced submachine gun must be unmanly or something, I dunno.

Once I noticed that the designers were giving the player poorly considered equipment, I started noticing it a bunch more. It was the 4th and 5th missions where this came to a head, and I realized this game was just retarded and not really worth my time. Ironically, this was also the time Rainbow Six: Raven Shield appeared at my doorstep, but I'll get to that in a second. In the 4th mission, the good guys (or good guy, rather) are dropped off via helicopter and sent out to blow up a bridge before a convoy gets there. Oops, they forgot to give you the satchel charges needed to blow said bridge. Hey, mistakes happen, right? You can just sneak into that warehouse over there and steal some (for some reason that warehouse had a ready supply of satchel charges), then sneak over THERE and steal the detonators, because this patrol is randomly carrying detonators for satchel charges that are back at the warehouse. Don't ask why. This warehouse is surrounded by hills and it's easy to get a clear view of the entire complex. Gee, sure would be a great place to set up and snipe. Well, if they'd given you a sniper rifle. Nope, you've got an M16 w/ a M203 grenade launcher. Not a bad weapon by any means, just horrifically inappropriate given your mission. This also irks me because even the standard specops M16 comes with a mini-scope, but the one in the game is infuriatingly without. Ironically, last mission they give you a silenced PSG-1, which would have been PERFECT, but do they let you pick your equipment before a mission? Of course not, that'd make things far too easy.

After a few tries, I finally blow the bridge and advance to the next mission. The next mission is to steal something out of the now-delayed convoy, oh, and take out that APC over there. That whole thing is not a problem, except for I don't have any ammo left and this sniper rifle I'm carrying is completely empty. Yes, there was a sniper rifle in the previous level, lying out inside the complex for you to come up and take. I guess they want you to WORK for your sniping pleasure. Well, I wasn't too worried about ammo, as I'd killed tons of enemies in the last mission, their guns are laying all over the place. I can also go back and pick up my M16, right? No such luck. Even though the second part takes place on the EXACT same map, the complex has been closed off and all the bodies (and guns with them) have been removed. At this point, I gave up and installed Raven Shield for a change of pace.

That's when it all fell apart. Raven Shield was everything I wanted IGI 2 to be. Want a silencer? Add one. Want a scope? Add one. The guns work the way they are supposed to, and the missions are hard because they are well thought out, not because they gave you the wrong tools for the job. Irony of ironies, a satchel charge is standard issue for the demolitions expert in Raven Shield. At that point I couldn't stand to play IGI 2 anymore, not when I had a blatantly better-designed game sitting in front of me.

Graphics: 8/10
The outdoor landscapes found in IGI 2 were certainly pleasing to the eye, but not the best out there right now. I did like the look of the game, though, especially the impressive maximum viewdistance. It's possible to watch sentries from over a mile away. Occasionally the landscape would flicker slightly as the polygonal seams would show through, this was especially apparent in far-off mountain ranges, but it never really bothered me.

Sound: 7/10
All the weapon sound effects and other environmental sounds are pretty much on par for this type of game. Footsteps make a nice variety of sounds depending on walking speed and terrain, and guards speak the language of the region, which is always a nice touch.

Control: 8/10
Standard FPS controls work well enough here. I never really had any problems getting the character to do what I wanted, and the physics of the game seemed fairly solid. If you've been playing FPS's at all these past few years, you wont' have any problem picking this one up.

Overall: 5/10
I started out liking IGI 2 quite a bit, but the more I played, and the more I thought about the absurdity of most of these situations, it ended up leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I'm not a big fan of designers shafting players because they can't make good AI and well thought out missions. I understand a game is a game, which is why I wasn't complaining that one bullet doesn't kill, but there are limits to believability when it comes to real-world scenarios. Maybe next time around we'll get options and fair situations instead of the wrong equipment and a pat on the ass as we jump out of the helicopter to certain death.

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