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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

24: The Game

  
 
buttergun
14:28 / 05.04.06
Has anyone played this? As a longtime 24 fan, I think it's pretty great. It really does tie up the loose ends from Season 2. It also rips off Alias! There's a part where a group of terrorists briefly take over CTU, just like in the first season of Alias (the one with Tarantino). The terrorists are even all tattooed and "extreme" looking.

The plot is all over the place, just like a regular 24 season. You get to play as most of the main characters, but mostly you are Jack Bauer. It has a variety of types of missions, but doesn't reward GTA-type experimentation. For example, in one mission you are Kim and have to sneak through CTU, getting into the air vents and evading all the terrorists. Instead, I had Kim go Rambo and beat down a terrorist, take his MP-5, and waste about ten of them. For my efforts I was awarded a 0% score at the end of the mission.

But like I said, they do tie up loose ends, and get this...Agent Baker is back! Ol' Jin from Lost himself. Oh yeah, and Nina shows up, too. The dude in charge of the terrorists at CTU (Peter Madsen...the actor playing him used to be on Angel -- Christian Kane) called her in the last mission I played (the game starts at 6AM; I'm currently up to 2PM); and, to tie the game even more into Season 3, we saw her sending some files on her computer to Michael Amador (the arms dealer who arranged the meeting with Jack, Nina, and the Salazars in Season 3).

The game has a few quirks, but I think it's very enjoyable, and, with the presence of the actual cast, producers, and writers, it really could be considered a "missing chapter" in the 24 saga.
 
 
rotational
10:09 / 07.04.06
As a bit of a 24 beginner (series one watched, series two halfway through but stalled on for little reason other than I've forgotten which DVD I was on...), I can't comment on how well the game slots into the 24 canon, but I really commend it for the quality of its cutscenes and voice acting. However, it's a bit problematic as a game.

Dividing it up into many small sections, complete with mini games, keeps to 24's rigidly timed narrative, but it raises two problems. First, there are so many types of games - driving, third-person shooting, marksman shooting, puzzle solving - that none of them feels truly solidly developed. The shooting is OK, but all a bit mushy, and it seems a little nonsensical that Tony Almeida kills 50 terrorists in an apartment block just like that. The puzzles feel tacked on and have little complexity - and can't, because by the time a player would be able to learn subtleties the game necessarily has to pull them over to doing some driving or something. Speaking of driving - it's just not very fun, though LA seems quite nicely realised.

The second problem is that 24 the programme feels very open - anything could happen. Bauer could be driving to the airport one moment, next in the countryside, then back to CTU. I keep feeling that I want the same sort of freedom in the game - to feel more responsible for the narrative by finding some clues myself, going out into LA to discover things for myself. Quite how this could be tied down into the 24 timecoding I have no idea, naturally.

And, as in the series, Kim Bauer represents the most irritating element in the game. Imposed stealth sections in many games are so rarely any fun and this is no exception. After effortlessly blasting through the terrorists as whasshername beforehand, it's really painful to have to creep about the same areas just to achieve the game's arbitrary guidelines to completing the level as Kim.

Hey ho. All that said, however, the game was somehow very complusive up till that point. Probably because the section are so varied and (mercifully) short. I like the sniper bit a lot though.
 
  
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