17-Mar-2006 Fans of the TV show will probably love it, but has Sony delivered for hardcore gamers too? Forget terrorists, assassination attempts and the serious threat to world peace. The wrath of 24's loyal fans would have been much worse if Sony had cocked up this one. Fortunately it hasn't, and thanks to the highly professional cut-scenes, story and voice acting it's managed to make a generic third-person shooting/driving game that little bit more interesting.
To give anything away in terms of plot would be like spoiling an actual episode of the show. Suffice to say that just about every well-known character is either playable or pops up somewhere along the line in a cut-scene. The gameplay mechanics are so broad and simple that many characters play almost identically, particularly Jack, Tony Almeida and Chase Edmunds.
Their missions basically involve gunning down a virtual army of henchmen and thugs, interspersed with some neat gadget-based mini-games or a playable interrogation scene. But this is no run-and-gun shooter such as The Punisher. Run around in the open here and you won't last long. Instead, you need to find cover, lean out, fire off a couple of shots and return to cover. And once you quickly get the hang of that you can then start aiming the small dot within the autotarget to score a few headshots and improve your overall ranking.
THE CLOCK IS TICKING It may be a simple system, but it works extremely well and really suits the sort of more realistic action you see in the show. Add to this Jack's mobile occasionally ringing in the middle of a firefight, plus all the other signature 24 flourishes such as the ticking clock and the multi-panel windows, and you can't help but be impressed by the attention to detail afforded to the actual license. So it's a shame that at times the gameplay itself hasn't quite received the same level of care. The camera is the game's biggest problem, though not to the same degree as in Sony's other driving/shooting series The Getaway.
However, like that game's camera, this one refuses to give you complete freedom of movement, always centering itself whenever you try to look up or down. This just isn't necessary and naturally leads to plenty of disorienting moments and even the odd bout of motion sickness when you're in cramped interiors facing multiple enemies. Surely repeating the same problem was easily avoidable and should have been apparent from day one given the barrage of criticism levelled at The Getaway series by pretty much everyone.
TRAFFIC TROUBLES Give Jack a gun and he knows what he's doing and does it pretty efficiently, but put him behind the wheel of a car and he looks less assured. The driving missions, though mercifully short, are pretty poor in comparison and also very repetitive. Regardless of whether you're tailing an enemy or need to get from A to B in the shortest time possible, the handling remains stubbornly clunky. How can the cars feel so heavy and boxy, yet still veer wildly from side to side at the slightest nudge of the analogue stick? And why does the rest of the traffic drive so erratically when they're in no danger from either Bauer or an enemy vehicle? Don't worry, the same questions will be running through your heads while playing.
No amount of meaty explosions and fast-paced music can rescue these missions, and you'll be left scratching your head at how such an important part of the game could have been so botched. By the end you'll feel like breaking down in tears at the wheel of the car just like Jack did in one of the episodes.
It's fair to say that casual gamers whom the game is targeted at probably won't care or even notice. And why should they? Being able to play as Jack Bauer and do all the stuff they've seen him do in the show is the most important thing to them, and on those basic terms, 24: The Game is an unqualified success. Lego Star Wars and Peter Jackson's King Kong aside, no other licensed game has done justice to the movie or show it's based on as well as this.
That might not make it a great game per se, but for fans of the show, 24: The Game is as essential as those DVD box sets.
PSW Staff
// Overview
Verdict
A mixed bag of driving, shooting and mini-games held together by the never-boring story and quality acting by the stars themselves.
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