ic-games Review - 24: The Game - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

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24: The Game

Information
Reviewer: Dave Lancaster
Developer: SCEE
Publisher: SCEE
Reviewed: Playstation 2
Genre: Action Adventure
UK Release: 12th Mar 2006
Article Date: 21st May 2006
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: £39.99
Price Comparison:
24: The Game

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 74%

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Pros

original voices

Captures the 24 spirit

Fills in excellently between S2-3

Cons

Camera can be frustrating

The car segments

A.I. needs some work

24, which follows the various unbelievable minute-to-minute events of everyone’s favourite terrorist-smoker Jack Bauer, has a lot going for it. With a tightly plotted script by some of the original writers and well produced voice talent from the real deal actors, the game slides itself neatly in the gap between the end of season 2 and the start of season 3, TV series-wise that is. Now in season 5 the show is popular as ever, and no doubt this adaptation will garner plenty of attention from people who wish they had Kiefer Sutherland’s feet to go inside Jack’s shoes.

Jack’s shoes aren’t the only CGI clogs to fill; as a player you get to play as all your other favourite and reckless heroes such as Tony, Chase and Kim Bauer, who manages to not fall down a well or get chased by pandas forcing her dad to take time out from saving the world to have a showdown at SeaWorld to rescue his daughter. There is also a nice variety of weapons to cheer up your trigger finger; everything from a selection of pistols and shotguns to assault rifles. Jack Bauer being God, can carry all of these at once without breaking a sweat, and accurately take out some terrorists that bear more than a passing resemblance to U2’s The Edge.

The games realism flatlines every once in a while. The physics on the driving (which is a welcome touch, if underdeveloped) are a bit dicey and some of the bad guys refuse to want to shoot you even after you’ve gunned down his pal right next to him. Shocked perhaps? Perhaps not. But the adrenaline is real. 24 has a wonderful sense of speed about it, which is probably its primary objective. Every now and then, the infamous clock will appear in the bottom of the screen. I doubt it’s real-time but it does keep your heart going. Fans of the show will love that.

Usually at the end of a level (of which there are reassuringly 24 for each hour) the clock will go red with only a few minutes left and you’ve got to run around like a headless chicken to disarm a bomb or whatever, and those moments are tense, especially when you’ve no idea what you’re doing. The sense of urgency created oh-so-well in the TV series is definitely here, and there are times when you think you could actually ‘pull a Jack Bauer’ – play the game for a day straight without going to the toilet. 24 has its flaws, and if this game wasn’t 24 related it would have a much lesser score.

As an adaptation it works, safe in the knowledge that it has secured the allure of the TV series, but as a stand-alone game it only sneaks in above average. It gets pretty repetitive, avoiding detection, failing, blowing people away, doing the classic ‘find the key for the door “puzzle”’, defuse the odd bomb, save a hostage etc. It’s all pretty basic, but the script does have the twists and turns and wide use of characters that the series did so it just about gels together. Unfortunately there isn’t much originality placed into the design, so you don’t have your shootouts in cool locations or anything. It seems pretty corporate. Interrogating prisoners is a neat touch, however. Tied in with the whole idea of flipping through characters all the way through, each with a different piece of the puzzle to offer is engaging, and provides a rich mixture of game play modes (and allows Jack to grab a bite to eat).

The AI is frustratingly hit & miss, the driving segments could be a hell of a lot better, the camera is annoying at times, you sometimes face the wrong way when shooting, the controls can dislike you, the graphics aren’t that good and the (excellent) musical score isn’t used enough in the action scenes. But when the split screen segments kick in, it really is a thrill. But for a game and TV series that relies so much on its infamous split screen segments, 24 doesn’t have a multiplayer mode. Imagine having a co-op mode on something like 24… I really believe that was an opportunity missed.

I’ve already mentioned that the graphics aren’t that great, and I wasn’t lying par se. They’re good, and free of glitches but they’re pretty flat. And the animation can lack expression sometimes (although the way that bodies and their weapons slide and fall down stairs after shooting them is very well done for example). I can’t praise the split screen enough, and when the camera isn’t being annoying, it has the excellent hand-held kinetic feel from the show.

The sound is more pleasing, when it’s there. Unfortunately there can be moments of silence that give 24 a drag. The voice acting is on the whole very good, with none of the actors sleepwalking through their lines, but some of the script (which on the whole is engaging) can be a little cheesy, the insults and throwaway lines about “if I don’t do this, this’ll happen and then we’re doomed!” typa things. There is an element of self-parody here I suppose.

Aside from that it’s great serious fun, if there is such a thing. 24 is topical, political, preposterous, dynamic, frustrating and addictive in equal measure. And that’s only six of the 24 adjectives I had written down. It’s true, there’s a lot to be had with this game, but you do wish that they pulled a few more 24 hour working days out of the bag and put it towards the gameplay. A good game, a great adaptation, worthy of your time.

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