There's definitely a lot of charisma to this game, and I especially love how this game plays with tone in a really comic fashion - where I feel that each of the levels in this game are pretty much a masterclass in constructing a distinct tone to each of them. Like, there's just so much done here and it's also one of those games which is just incredibly massive - something that I must have sunk dozens if not hundreds of hours into just playing through and trying to unlock every single achievement and token and character.

But then it's also just a really satisfying shooter in general, especially with just how tight it feels for a console shooter - and also with how it expands upon gameplay elements established in games such as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark (this game was also made by developers who left Rareware to work on this game). Some of my favourite levels in this game include the very distinctly noir toned level Chicago and the western themes level Wild West - and it's very indicative that this was one of those games where it was heavily experimental. I think there's portions of it which don't quite fully work and it suffers a bit from some incredibly steep difficulty curves (like this game is hard and then some) but it's also such a fun game overall that it's well worth playing.

Also, you can also play a version of this game in Battlefront 2 (where you can unlock the full version by a certain cheat code) - and fans of the movie Shaun of the Dead (2004) would also notice this as the game that Ed plays, and is utilised somewhat as a visual gag in that film (although clearly in the script it was originally just any generic video game, noticeable with the non-existence 'Player 2 has entered/left the game' joke.)

Reviewed on Apr 16, 2021


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