Preview: 24: The Game

SCE / Playstation 2 / Mature

While any half-baked action movie that comes out seems to get an equally half-baked game tie-in, the best of the action TV shows rarely get such an opportunity. Think of the wasted opportunities: a Friends dating sim, a Law & Order detective game, Simpson’s Skateboarding! (oh wait…). In terms of current TV shows they don’t get much better than 24 and now the popular show gets its chance to prove the TV-game market in the unoriginally titled: 24: The Game.

The game follows the events of the second and third seasons of the series (or so I’m told) and leads Jack Bauer on a quest to prevent an assassination attempt on the vice president. And while saving the VP may not seem like entirely useful work Jack takes his work very seriously. What would be a fairly straightforward mission in real life leads Jack through a seedy made-for-TV underworld complete with drug dealers, terrorists, and kidnappers for gamers to hunt down.

Outside the story, 24 follows most basic movie game conventions. It includes voice acting by the actors who play the main characters, cinematic cutscenes, and, as tradition dictates, a glaring flaw that either masks or accentuates the game’s otherwise bland gameplay.

The big defect here is the camera, which hugs way too close to the admittantly handsome Mr. Bauer and flails wildly when asked to actually target something. Not only does this render the game largely unplayable, but has a tendency to nauseate the player (my carpet still smells a little funky).

Outside of the epileptic camera everything else about the gameplay is typical, if not good, third-person shooter gameplay. There are a good number of weapons but nothing else is really remarkable. The graphics and sound are nothing special either so it will fall to the story to carry the game, which it may or may not be able to do.

Really, from what I can tell from the demo, the game is less a roller coaster ride and more like a spin on the tilt-a-whirl. You’re twice as likely to throw up and the view isn’t nearly as nice. We’ll see in late February/early March.

By Zack Rovinsky