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Rating: Good
Mission: Impossible is a pretty good game, but unfortunately it is
nowhere near as good as originally promised and nowhere near as good as
Goldeneye 007. Unlike Goldeneye, Mission: Impossible is a "real" spy
simulation. Goldeneye was basically a first-person shooter that just
happened to have a James Bond license and spy-based mission objectives, and
you basically went around killing things like in every other first-person
shooter (not that I'm complaining, because when the game is that fun, who
cares?). In Mission: Impossible, you are often disguised as someone else
and can't do anything that would blow your cover, so being even the
slightest bit violent will result in an immediate Mission Failed in many
missions. And it's a good thing, too, since the combat in this game sucks
so very, very much. The control is a pain in the butt, and the third-
person camera angles are much less convenient than the simple first-person
view found in Goldeneye.
Mission: Impossible is also inconsistent quite often, so much so that
you could even call it consistently inconsistent. Some of the missions
rock and make you feel like you're a real spy (as corny as that sounds,
it's true), but some of the missions suck so bad you will throw the
controller down in disgust. And quite frankly, the good missions aren't
good enough to make it worth sitting through the bad ones. Most of the
game's levels have lots of objectives you must complete to beat the level.
The game could have benefitted from this, but instead this hinders the game
because the tiniest screw-up can and usually does result in a Mission
Failed, and then you have to start all the way over at the beginning of the
level. It would have been nice if the game placed you back at the site of
your last completed mission objective when you failed instead of making you
start all the way back at the beginning of the level. Also, this isn't a
very long game, and once you beat it there is absolutely no motivation to
go back and play it again. One of Goldeneye's biggest strengths was its
cool multi-player features, but this game doesn't have any multi-player
features whatsoever. The multi-player modes probably would have sucked
anyway since the control and camera are so finicky.
In addition, the graphics and sound leave a lot to be desired. The
graphics are grainy and nowhere near as polished as they should be, and the
music ranges from good to horrible. Even the classic Mission: Impossible
theme song is somewhat lacking (it's very clear from the moment it starts
that it had to be toned-down technologically to fit on a cartridge).
In conclusion, if you have already played the tar out of Goldeneye 007
and you like spy sims, Mission: Impossible is worth a look, but it is
definitely not worth buying.
/100">
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com