|
 |
|
| | Title:
Cold War
..............................................
System:
Xbox
..............................................
Genre:
Action
..............................................
Publisher:
DreamCatcher
..............................................
Developer:
Mindware
..............................................
Release:
6/28/2005
..............................................
Online:
No
..............................................
ESRB:
Rating Pending
..............................................
 |
Splinter Cell never seemed so easy when you’re put in a position where stealth isn’t quite as friendly to you; dark shadows cower in small corners due to lights actually being turned on in most rooms; and your melee and overall attack skills and agility suffer, greatly in comparison to that of the counter-part espionage experts such as Snake Solid or Sam Fisher. Cold War is a game that places you into the role of a journalist during the mid 1980's, who must use smarts to get out of tight spots and follow through on missions in which you must infiltrate or encroach enemy territories, or take reconnaissance photos of certain events or situations occurring in the heavy prime of opposing forces.
Shoes you don’t want to be in
Free-lance journalist Matthew Carter, doing a less than routine story during a visit to the U.S.S.R., thanks to insider information from his comrade Sergei, is basically in Russia to try and spy on a secret meeting between top political officials and the Russian President. Although these plans are foiled while he is visiting Lenin’s tomb, and finds his camera supped up with amazing X-ray technology that can be used to detonate fire extinguishers. The Russian secret police, which had been following Matt since his arrival, move in and promptly arrest him. He is beaten, stripped of his possessions, knocked unconscious and dragged off to a political prison while awaiting his further departure to the dreaded Siberian KGB prison. Cozy eh?
Like any good (and unbelievably smart) journalist, Matt is suspecting a heavy conspiracy that he is being pawned in, and must unravel the mysterious cabal trying to claim Russia for itself, to clear his name, escape from the Iron Curtain and practically save the day. (Although, things aren’t quite as simple as that, nor is the plot quite as straight-forward as that, and Matthew Carter, is not a super-hero.)
Players are put into a position in which reliance on wit and cunning skill is far more likely to guarantee you uncertain livelihood rather than trying to go for guns and glory. Although, there will be times when guns and glory are the only reasonable resolve. This is not to implicate the lack of utilizing weapons for the majority part of your mission, but rather the discretion in which players choose to utilize such weapons. Much like in the same way that stealth in this game is not just a word that applies to standing back against a wall while opposing forces walk by, etc. Instead, stealth is how well the player actually applies the conditions of being quiet and hidden at all times; as enemy forces will stop and listen if they hear even the slightest of your footsteps, or someone running where they shouldn’t be. A likely note that should also be made is that unlike the Hitman series, dragging bodies is no where near as convenient or as easy, or more importantly, as light. Cold Wars takes the matter of moving around incapacitated bodies into a much more realistic venue than other games with such features. You actually see the character on-screen lug the limp body over their shoulder and slowly trudge forward with the dead-weight weighing heavy on the momentum of the player. Timing and strategic actions are a key feature for the player to take hold of and use as if there was no tomorrow. Not to mention a seat-load of patience; the ability to withstand beads of sweat that will more-than-likely, and rather profusely, continue to flow from the forehead; and a good-heart that won’t give out during some rather high tension moments that could possibly ruin a good run of progress through a level.
Is it really that intense?
Yes, the game is just that intense. I found myself being a bit blue after having finally seen Matt shot and killed after doing so well; yes, I held my breath for that long; and no I didn’t make it very far, but I did do well. Which is something many gamers will have the fortunate benefit of looking towards in this game, as it offers multiple routes and situations for completing just about any given mission, much to the likes of what you might find in Splinter Cell. Ultimately how you decide to take on a task and complete it is determined only by your various skills, patience, stealth and techniques employed to getting the mission done successfully. This was something which was both challenging and immensely entertaining.
See how real life has a place in video games
The locations are evocatively cold in this game. The rarity of actually taking place in Russia sets it apart from most other titles that aren’t entirely war oriented, and the actual emplacement of the missions and activities are quite varied in their design and presentation. Which proves well for players who enjoy the mixture of cramped underground hallways to outdoor city streets, caked in a think frosty layer of snow.
For this case it must be pointed out that all the locales are actual places from the U.S.S.R. Ranging from the Kremlin Palace: Which is the residency of the Russian President, and each of it’s grand halls, whose names come from great military orders from the country’s past, is filled with decorated honors and plaques for the various regimes within the orders. Or the small placid town of Chernobyl; nine miles from the actual Chernobyl town, lies a Nuclear power station to accent the importance of it’s topographic position. There is also Lubyanka, which needs very little explaining for those well known with its background. Although for those who are unfamiliar with its history, (as I was before researching the material for this article) the KGB used Lubyanka as their headquarters at the heart of downtown Moscow in Lubyanka Square. Which by far was one of the most infamous internal affairs’ prisons of the Soviet Union. The building now, behind Lubyanka Square, is used mostly for tourist attractions which, for better or for worse, now features, for the lounging retired KGB officers, a disco club room which certainly softens the once hardcore image of the Soviet KGB.
The last location in which Cold War will feature is the dauntingly beautiful Mausoleum. Claimed to be of excellent architectural exquisiteness and certainly one of the finer Soviet designs. The Mausoleum’s location, while in the Red Square, is quite near the Senate Tower of the Kremlin. Which, in case those who wonder what importance it carries with it, is the home of Vladimir Lenin’s resting place. The tomb originally constructed in three days during 1924, and made of wood by Aleksei Shusev, after which the passing of six years, and realizing further capabilities of preserving Lenin’s body, the wooden safe-holding of the body was replaced with a much more able tomb, constructed of stone and placed within the Mausoleum. This is where Matthew Carter discovers his X-ray enhanced camera that works as a fire-extinguisher detonator, that was planted in the tomb, and eventually gets him thrown in jail.
Bond has nothing on Carter...Matt Carter
Cold War takes a completely different approach to the notion of being an agent under fire. You’re not given specialty weapons, you have no contacts, there are no secret golden guns or super-laser beam fire repeater blasters. Everything you use that isn’t a weapon from a downed enemy is made from spare items in your inventory. Unlike MGS or Splinter Cell you don’t start with silencers, or simply pick them up out of crates; you aren’t given a Socom or a USP tactical. You have to acquire such items from within the stage. The assembly screen is where all of the technical items can be, well, assembled. There are different levels of items to be made, and the higher the level, the more difficult the item is to build. They require not only a certain amount of specific items, but they will also require blue prints (or a certain amount tech points) to build. Hence, players must search for such files throughout given segments within some stages that give the player tech points. This basically works as one of the most legitimate level-up systems seen in a video game to-date.
For instance, if a guard is in front of a door that leads to a room with a civilian that has information you need to relinquish from their possession, then you’ll have to get rid of the guard to get to the civilian while attracting as little attention as you possibly can. Thus, you use your acquired medical bandages that you may have found from the infirmary, and maybe you might have on you still, the empty plastic bottle from a janitor’s closet, that you fill with the bandages around the outer edges of the inside of the bottle; to which you must make room enough for the barrel of the pistol to slide snugly inside. Presto! You now have a home-made, er, or rather, escaped-prisoner-trying-to-uncover-plot-to-over-throw-Russian Government-made silencer. You shoot the guard standing in front of the door, knock-out the civilian and obtain blue-prints to build a much more effective ether trip-mine.
Other items include useful gadgetry such as the paralyze sling-shot round made up of some other environment-found items that are usually scattered about. This is quite useful for incapacitating certain individuals for which their survival is necessary. Simply being, no civilian is allowed to die by your hand. Instantly the mission is a failure if the player decides to commit such a trifle; which makes enough sense. Aside from the bombs, ether grenades, trip-mines, or alarm-clock luring trip ether-bombs, there is another overly-useful gadget that takes the place of the standard bad-guy-on-the-radar, or motion tracker that most games feature. It is an X-ray modified camera. With this camera players are able to see a short distance in front of them through all the walls, and are given hints as to what items they can manipulate to their advantage. If that weren’t enough, players are also signaled to the whereabouts of other moving bodies, with the X-ray device showing the skeletal frame of any nearby persons. Despite giving players a view of the stage in wire-frame mode while in the X-ray viewing mode, the game definitely holds up it’s visual integrity, even when it’s stripped of everything that makes it look pretty.
Cold, dark and ugly
Cold Wars is very dark, and rather cold looking from its presentation standpoint, but it is anything afar from ugly. The detail in the faces; the light sourcing on the characters and their clothes; the shadows that bend to the highlights of the character’s muscles when they move or run; is all rather polished well for a console game. It’s definitely one of the better looking Xbox titles out there. The soundtrack as well is finely tuned to the suspense and thrilling action that takes place throughout the game. The interactive music seems to really shine through on the more tense-ridden moments of this game. The sound itself is quite an integral part of the gameplay actually. As players will need to focus their playing style on being silent with their footsteps (by moving the analog slowly the characters walk slowly, creating less noise,) or opening doors only when the coast is clear. More importantly, is the effective assurance of firing weapons only when the cost of discharging a loud firearm outweighs the hazard of being caught.
Values of persona
While the game features the main story taking place in the point of view of Matthew Carter, there are also times in which levels will take place from the point of view of other characters who need to accomplish, or execute certain objectives in no certain compliance with Matthew Carter. This will give players a bit more of a wider perspective on how the story plays out around the events involving the main story line. This is sure to be a factor in how replayable the game is.
This is definitely not Splinter Cell, Winback, or Metal Gear, and that actually is far from a bad thing. The characters are not quite as agile or weapon-enthused as other stealth oriented games, but that seems to be its strong point for ingenuity. Thinking and high-tension resolve seems to be a constant throughout the gameplay in Cold War, and anyone who finds Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid getting a bit soft in their aim for being as challenging as they could be, might find an alternative in Cold War when it hits shelves on September 27, 2005.
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
 |
