Platform: PS2
Published by: PlayStation2
Price: $39.99
The easiest way for me to break down this review for the reader is thisd: If you love 24, you’ll want to play this game. If you’re not a fan of the show, then you probably won’t get all the fuss.
24: The Game picks up shortly after season 2 of the TV show, and is used to bridge the gap between said season and season 3. In doing so, we get proper introductions to both Chase and Chloe, and a surprisingly solid storyline that is on par with the stuff shown on TV. To help things along, we get the same style and mood of music, and incredibly detailed character models that really bring to life everyone at CTU.
When the game begins, you start off as Jack Bauer and a terrorist plot begins to unveil itself, with the Vice President being the primary target. I won’t give too much information away involving the plot, as that’s really the primary reason for buying this game. Suffice to say that fans of the show will not be disappointed, as many of the twists and turns familiar to those that watch are definitely present here.
Unfortunately, outside of the story, the game doesn’t really excel at any one thing. The controls are solid enough, even if the aiming/combat system is a bit weak. When you encounter a room full of enemies, you have the option to announce who you are, in hopes of the enemies instantly surrendering. I never had this happen though, and instead I would be forced to open fire. You can either choose to use the auto aim or manually fire, but the manual aim is so slow that it’s not really viable. On the other hand, auto aim feels like cheating, so there’s not a really good balance between the two. If you knock a couple of shots into a bad guy, they might drop their weapon and surrender. You can then detain them, or just kill them. Detaining them gets you more points at the end of the level, and goes towards your overall level score, which can in turn unlock bonus features like cast interviews, etc.
The car chase portions are the worst aspect of the game, as the car controls incredibly slowly, and feels much like racing along the highway inside a forklift. Thankfully, the game isn’t full of such scenes, so it’s a minor annoyance at best. There are also a few puzzle sequences in the game, usually when something needs to be de-armed or accessed. These provide a nice break in the action, and while not too hard to perform, still manage to be fun little mini-games.
As I mentioned before, the biggest draw to 24: The Game, is for the fans of the show to get a little extra story. Think of it as a half season, where everything happens in a day but doesn’t take 24 hours of actual playtime to unfold. It’s nice to see where Chase and Chloe actually came from, and it’s cool to see little things being set up for what was in season 3. I can’t see the game appealing to anyone that hasn’t watched the show though, so the game is limited in its audience.
- Dustin Chadwell currently resides in Ohio, USA. He's been playing video games since the Atari 2600, and believes he can whoop anyone's ass in Joust, and Galaga. Probably not Halo 2 though. New technology tends to confuse him.