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The game starts off at the mineral mine in Volgia - the last whereabouts of the missing CIA agent. You creep inside as your Russian contact creates a “diversion” to keep the gate guard occupied. As you progress through the first mission, you discover these Russians are mining more than just your every day minerals. A new mineral called Tri Nepheline has been unearthed in the mine. This mineral has the ability to generate clean, abundant, cheap power on a massive scale. Sounds perfect for a weapon, eh? Of course it does.

Throughout the game you will need to use stealth, wits, and a bit of brainpower to overcome the puzzles and enemies. Ok, maybe the brainpower of a 2 year old… You can take down enemies by creeping up behind them and landing the English death chop to their necks. You can also pull out the hardware and start blasting away, although in some cases you will set off an alarm and things could get messy. When you do choose to use your gun, the game will auto aim for you. The controls in the game aren’t the best in the world so the auto aim is a welcomed feature. You can change the controls, but there are a few keys that are unchangeable. In order to fire, you must hold down the ALT button while you shoot. Crouching and shooting requires you to hold down two buttons at the same time while firing with the third. It can get a little annoying, but not hard to work with once you get used to it. There isn’t much strategy in the gunfights. You just stand there trading shots with the enemies.

No MI6 agent is complete without his fancy toys. You are equipped with your trusty “Remora” super-watch. You can link up to computers, hack security codes, access databases and order pizza all with this high tech gadget (ok, maybe not order pizza). Through the game, you are given more toys to play with that are useful in your missions, but none ever so useful or universal as the Remora.

This game has been out for about a year, but the graphics remind me of the old Sierra “Quest” games back in the early to mid 90’s. Nothing ground breaking here folks – don’t let the screen shots fool ya. The sound isn’t much better. The effects are O.K. and the voice acting is cheesed. On the bright side, you only need a P233MMX w/ 32 megs of RAM to play the game! There is nothing terribly original about this game, although it’s got a strong enough story to keep things interesting. Most of this game appears to be taken from James Bond, Metal Gear Solid, and Thief (with a little Indian Jones gimmick in the first mission). The game does have a good story, despite its shortcomings. Twists and turns, a sinister bad guy along with his tank of a right hand man (who’s specialty is interrogation), and the heroine love interest, of course. All in all it was a decent game that was mildly entertaining but nothing that is going to shatter any record books for inventive or groundbreaking game play.