Project IGI Review

Intro

Developer: Innerloop
Publisher: Eidos
Project IGI official page: http://www.project-i-g-i.com/index.html#

I still remember seeing this game at E3 last May, with its original name intact - I'm Going In. With all the meetings, stuff to look at, and general mayhem at a convention that large, one thought went through my mind - what compelled Eidos to publish a game with such a moronic name. My mind, being of the sort that isn't eager to subject itself to torture, decided to create a little black bubble of ignorance; and without so much as a second glance, I walked past the booth. Other greater, nay, larger, things had caught my eye - the Eidos booth babes.

Must have FSAA...

It's me!

A few weeks ago we got this game in its full released form. The new title, Project IGI, reminds me of a cheesy Jackie Chan movie. Clever marketing people I tell you, disguising the original name as an acronym, maybe they took a lesson from KFC. Personally, I would have dumped the name and gone with something else altogether. Aside from the name overhaul, not much else went terribly right.

Die soda boy.

Wasted

Story

In Project IGI, you play the role of former British SAS agent David Jones. Mr. Jones is now a freelance operative who's into some pretty major, as the acronym states, infiltration jobs. The game centers around the capture of an arms dealer named Priboi, who has been selling bombs of the nuclear variety. The story isn't particularly great, nothing that hasn't been done before in any James Bond, or Our Man Flint, flick. It was well put together; each progressive level brings you more information in a sort of follow the clue sort of path. A few little loops creep up; but nothing quite prepares you for the ending, which seems a bit like Doom or possibly even an ending out an old Nintendo game. If they could have spent less time on it, there would have been a text message, roughly a paragraph long. The ending was either a setup for a really bad joke (meaning these guys are living off of 'gubment cheese) or a sequel.

He sure was a messy one.

Hack hack hack

Aside from the end, each mission comes with its own briefing session, mingled with your common action-movie oriented conversation. Occasionally, you get new instructions during a mission. Unfortunately, they are given to you as text during a heated firefight; thankfully you can go through logs to find out what was said. Not all of the briefings are like this; most are actually supported with audio and visual data.

As for the game length, it is composed of upwards of around 14 missions; most of the latter ones are quite long. Overall, I'd say the game should last you no longer than 40 hours, that's including any extraneous time you spend screwing around after you've beaten it.