but there's plenty of fun to be had in this short shooter. The few hours of entertainment are well worth the asking price here and it's not SO old that the graphics completely disconnect you from the experience. In certain parts I had to tell myself it wasn't an open-world game, as it looked as though I could go wandering off and exploring and, as ever, experienced locked-door syndrome but the best of older FPSs (Half Life, Jedi Knight) and even more up-to-date fare (FEAR) still suffer from this. It has an "arcade" feel in that the continuity between levels is merely the story, any guns or ammo you've collected on one level don't survive to the next but you get the option of going back to play any level (or one of the Challenge levels) with the standard load-out you received while doing the story in the first place. Playing mainly PC games this concept frankly freaked me out a little as I'd only ever seen it in Psi-Ops before. That it apparently came out in 2005 is a bit of surprise when you play it as it feels that it fits at least 2 or 3 years earlier in the evolution of PC FPSs but then exactly the same can be said of Halo, a 1999 game released on the PC in 2003 when the competition was streets ahead. Actually I would compare this with Halo in that it's not as much as you might expect from a PC game but entertaining enough. And at least this has some decent weaponry in it. Oh, and some broken but hilarious rag-doll action. Definitely worth your £4.
Loved this game when it came out, although the profusion of controls made it impossible to play until I started to think of it like a Mechwarrior game when it suddenly clicked. The huge driving arenas give it a great sense of freedom and a real chance to zip about in your funkmobile, it's great fun and the handling feels just heavy enough, like GTA IV. The music, dialogue and look of it all work brilliantly together to give real atmosphere. However; the upgrade/salvage screens were always thoroughly confusing, I was never completely sure if I was upgrading, replacing with like or downgrading. The intervening years of the original disk installer telling me "This game is not designed for Windows NT" have had me screaming at the machine so thanks GoG for the chance to play it again. Thankfully I have the soundtrack, the games shops had a small stock of CDs they were handing out at the time and I still listen to it quite often. Never get out of the car (cue slap bass).
