IGI 2: Covert Strike : Web Wombat: Games

"We are now up against live, hostile targets. So, if Little Red Riding Hood should show up with a bazooka and a bad attitude, I expect you to chin the b*tch!"

---Sarge, Dog Soldiers---

IGI, in this case, does not stand for International Gemmological Institute.

It does, however, apparently stand for I'm Going In or, alternatively, Institute for Geotactical Intelligence, which is really just a classy name for "a select private-sector squad of highly trained solo operatives, committed to the covert suppression of aggression, the confiscation of power and the dissolution of terrorism", which in turn is more spin doctor-style verbiage for a bunch of damn crazy Special Ops soldier boys with automatic weapons who would fit well into any B-grade commando flick cast. That explained, on we go…

Heading up this elite squad of crazies is ex-SAS agent and 'Number One' operative David Jones, a James-Bond-alike complete with high-class British accent and quiet bad-arse attitude.

Unlike Bond, however, there are no martinis or cloaked V12 Aston Martin's in evidence, but we still have the notorious run/gun train chases, crack of dawn fire fights, winter tundra sniping scenes and various other action movie favourites to play around with, if only because IGI2 shares more in common with a film like True Lies than a gripping, dead-realistic tale of global espionage and intrigue, despite what the manual might say.

First, let's start with the Artificial Intelligence. Now, some of the scripting routines are quite cool, like the way that guards flank and use grenades to smoke you out from behind cover, but other parts of the AI aren't quite as clever.

While greedy, the graphics engine is sweet to look at

For instance, you have two sentries standing together near a guard booth. I shoot one in the back of the head from a range of about 10 yards and the other completely fails to notice the fact that his comrade is taking a nap amongst his own fluids.

This sort of thing tends to take the realistic out of "realistic experience", yah? Or how about the fact that guards seem to just run blindly through doors, guns blazing, straight into a choke point ambush that a three year old could avoid?

The worst has to be when you are forced to get through a heavily guarded area without setting off an alarm, and anything will set off the sentries who run towards the nearest alarm console and hit the switch.

Should you, however, run round the back of a building and toss a grenade over the side to distract the guards, they will just blindly ignore you and, when they finally notice you exist, just run straight towards you, AK-47s blaring, despite the fact that an alarm console was less than 10 feet away and could have been reached in an instant. Très weird, no?

I don't know whether this was Innerloop being funny or Codemasters doing their thing and rushing games out before they're finished, but if I was forced to hedge a bet, my money would definitely be on possibility number 2.

Remember Operation Flashpoint? An excellent game ruined by more bugs than a termite nest. An excellent game that needed five patches to become decently playable, thanks to the lovely boys at CM wanting it out before Christmas, to get maximum sales out of the game.

When the going gets tough, the tough use Deagles...

Now, you would expect stealthiness from a covert operative, yah? Well, that's sort of the whole point of a game like this, isn't it and (partially) stealth can be used, creeping quietly through the undergrowth with a silenced PSG-1 sniper rifle, picking off targets from afar.

But in the majority of situations, it is ultimately quicker and infinitely easier to just pull a Schwarzenegger and go full bore with a MAC-10, popping enemies gangsta-style and leaping around like the proverbial monkey on crack.

In the small but still significant number of encounters where stealth is a must and 'Boyz in the Hood' rampages are not encouraged, there are numerous tools to help you with the job.

First off, you have the ubiquitous Palm Pilot-style mini-laptop, which multi-tasks between being a save terminal, map computer, unfeasibly fast code breaker and two-way satellite linkup between you and home base, with optional toaster oven and electronic egg timer features planned for next year's retail release.

Other than this nifty gadget, you've got electronic lock picks, field binoculars and, most importantly, thermal goggles.

These rather cool pieces of eyewear allow you to see heat, even through walls, and since the human body generates over 30,000 BTUs of body heat, guards and other nasties show up like great big neon signs on your display, allowing you to check out where enemy patrols are and how they move, before you ever have to see their ugly mugs.

Of course, thanks to a neato piece of code in the game engine, you can now shoot through walls, which means that, should you get the drop on a pair of lonely sentries standing around in the barracks and should you have a sufficiently high-calibre weapon, you can then…"light up their lives"?

Jones 1, bridge 0

Of course, the same applies to you, so no more hiding behind seemingly indestructible office partitions a la Red Faction, unless you like the idea of spending the rest of your incredibly short life as a piece of high protein Swiss cheese...

To aid you in your quest to perforate, puncture and (ahem) prick, an arsenal of 15+ weapons are scattered throughout the various impressive locations that David "Globetrotter" Jones will visit, falling into the various categories of:

· Melee: A knife. 'Nuff said.

· Pistols: Silenced Glock-17s, heavily modded US SOCOM .45s, cheap, flaky Makarov 9mms and everything between. Good back-up weapons and, while not packing the punch of an assault rifle, they're good for wet work when quiet is the order of the day. Not to mention that you can pistol whip everyone in sight to your heart's content, which is always a plus.

· Sub-machine guns: The ever-popular Ingram MAC-10, dependable Heckler & Koch MP5-A3 and, strangely enough, the M1A3 "grease gun" in its second game appearance ever (first seen in Soldier of Fortune 2).

· Rifles: The meat of the armoury, we've got AK-47s, M-16s (optional underhand grenade launcher included), the rather cool M1014 assault shotgun, not to mention three different sniper rifles in SVD Dragunov, PSG-1 and OICW prototype flavours.

· Grenades: L2A2 fragmentation grenades and some novelty incendiary explosives.

· Heavy weaponry: Not too much in this category, apart from the obscure "mini-me" heavy support machine gun (a cut-down version of the M60 with a 100 round box magazine instead of a belt fed mechanism) and, of course, the RPG, which doesn't need much explanation. "Pull trigger, bad guy go boom, jah?"

"All I gotta do is quietly sneak into the compound...
But not before I loudly relieve myself. Aaaaah..."

So yeah, not much lacking in the armoury, except for maybe an Abrams tank and possibly a minigun (would you believe that, of all companies, General Electric supply the US Army with their chain guns? [Next you'll tell me the French make nukes... - Ed]).

However, I was extremely perturbed by the system requirements of IGI2, as it ain't exactly the Mona Lisa, if you get my meaning.

It's not ugly, as such, just…well, average, I guess. The landscapes are nice and the weapon models are high-poly and well textured, but Soldier of Fortune 2 had that and could be run on a 1.1GHz Celeron with a Geforce 2 at 800x600 at 30fps without a hitch.

It may have something to do with the disturbing fact that IGI2 eats virtual memory like popcorn and is constantly writing to the page file on the hard drive, a sure sign that it is a RAM hungry beast.

After much conversation with a map design geek, I found out that IGI2 renders every map in its entirety, not just the bit the player sees, and is constantly re-rendering and re-calculating AI stimulus, patrols and so on, which explains the whole "page file chomper" syndrome.

For those of you who couldn't cope with Ghost Recon and found Serious Sam a bit too ridiculous, IGI2 is right up your alley.

Not so realistic as to drive away all those not already indoctrinated in the ways of cleaning an M16, just realistic enough that you can't keep leaping off five storey high command centres with impunity, yet quietly freeform to allow the fun lovers to get in on the game, so to speak.

Just make sure your precious wad of dough is invested in system upgrades beforehand, 'kay?

Game: IGI 2: Covert Strike
System: PC
Players: 1-multi
Online: Yes
Developer: Codemasters
Distributor: GameNation

Rating: 80%

(Ratings Key/Explantion)

IGI 2: Covert Strike is on the shelves now.

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