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24 has become one of the biggest TV shows in the world, down to its incredible twisting storylines and frankly ridiculous events. While it’s often predictable, it’s never anything but entertaining, with Jack Bauer now destined to become one of the most famous TV characters of all time. 24: The Game from Sony’s Studio Cambridge does an admirable job at translating the best parts of the show to a video game, but it’s clear that “we’re running out of time” was heard a little too often towards the end of development.
Set between seasons 2 and 3, the game features all the main characters from both seasons, letting you play as Jack, Tony, Chase, Kim and plenty of others. While players who are yet to see season 3 won’t be familiar with a number of key characters in the game, the story does a good job of introducing them and also fills in some blanks for 24 fans. The majority of the game is spent in action missions, and these are mainly handled by Jack, Tony and Chase, with other characters chipping in with analysis and hacking tasks.
Without giving any of the plot away, it’s safe to say that LA is under threat from a terrorist attack once again, numerous people close to Jack will get kidnapped, interrogations will take place, attempts will be made on people’s lives, and CTU will inevitably have to save the day. The way the game mimics the show’s style is impressive, with all the trademark split-screen action, on-screen clock, tension mounting blips and all the rest. You even get the introduction to each hour and most end on a revelation or key event of some sort.
The key to the presentation is the representation of the characters, which, while not 100 per cent accurate (many characters appear to have been eating a few too many pies), has been handled superbly. All the key characters are voiced by the actual actor in the show and everything sounds pretty great. The story is slightly less cohesive than those in the TV show and there’s a disappointing lack of bitching and back stabbing (somewhat of a trademark of the show), but it’s hard not to get sucked in by the fast moving storyline.
Rather disappointingly, the story and the way it’s told far outclasses the actual gameplay. Most missions are played on foot, and mix straight-out shooting with elements of stealth. Stealth elements are handled well enough, with enemy vision cones being visible on the on-screen map, but characters often struggle to take cover when you ask them to, and the inability to move while your back is against a wall is rather annoying. This also affects the combat sections, forcing you to temporarily come out of cover to move to the other side of a wall.
These problems seem insignificant compared to issues with the targeting system. You can choose to make the targeting work in the direction of the camera or the way your character is facing, but both suffer from the same problem. On many occasions you’ll be encountered by a number of enemies, find yourself out of cover and in a lot of trouble. If you happen to run past an enemy, trying to target a guy behind you becomes incredibly difficult, as you can’t turn around at anything approaching a decent speed and the camera goes into some kind of spasm. If you keep the enemies in front of you these sections are often entertaining, with the more powerful weapons downing them with pleasing ease, but it’s almost impossible not to encounter a few control issues in each level.
Throughout the game you’ll come across many electronically locked doors that need hacking, and the guys back at CTU will have to carry out tasks every now and again. Whatever the task, the activity you’ll carry out will be pretty dull: joining up nodes, matching coloured blocks to face buttons on the controller, analysing buildings for enemies, and rearranging letters to their correct formation. They’re all rather uninspired mini-games, which is sadly also true for interrogations, which feel about as realistic as the way CTU operates in the TV show. Whichever character is handling the interrogation, it comes down to nothing more than pressing a button at the right time.
What’s left is numerous driving sections, that see you racing around LA in order to find something in a set time or trying to evade the cops (bizarrely you also get to play as a terrorist). These sections aren’t terrible, but the cars feel slightly sluggish and the frame rate often chugs enough to get in the way. The cops are also a real pain to shake loose, with evasion sections often taking far longer than you’d like. There’s one section late in the game that mixes things up a little, but on the whole the driving sections are rather uninspired. It’s great that the game features so many distinct game types, but perhaps it would have been better if the developers had focussed on one.
Technically, the game is a mixed bag. At times the levels look very impressive and feature some lovely lighting, but at other times the frame rate will hitch up, the camera will lose its mind and things look rather early-gen PlayStation 2. There’s support for widescreen, 60 Hz and Progressive Scan if your TV can handle it, but it’s hard not to feel a little let down after Studio Cambridge’s last two games (Primal and Ghost Hunter) looked so incredible.
A slight point, but worth mentioning, is how missions end. On more than one occasion a mission ended while a character was saying something interesting, only for the audio to cut out and the ‘Mission complete’ screen to appear. The way the story sections integrate with the gameplay is also jarring at times. When a key event occurs in gameplay you want the game to seamlessly throw in a cutscene, but you’re always taken to the ‘Mission complete’ screen first. It’s a minor problem that certainly won’t grate everyone, but it slightly ruins the illusion of an interactive TV show.
24: The Game would fail miserably if judged as any other video game. The core gameplay often feels so bad it seems fundamentally broken, but there’s a reason I played it non-stop for two days. The story is brilliantly told and it’s great to see some of the gap between season 2 and 3 being filled in. Sure, it should have been a better game, and it’s not exactly a challenging game to play through, but if you’re a fan of the show it’ll keep you hooked from start to finish.
