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I.G.I. 2: Covert Strike Single Player Demo

by Joe "Impaler" Highman

Article Type: Review
Article Date: February 06, 2003

Product Info

Product Name: I.G.I. 2: Covert Strike
Category: First-Person Tactical Shooter
Developer: Innerloop Studios
Distributor: Codemasters
Release Date: February 2003
Minimum Spec: TBA
Files & Links: Click Here

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“All Of Life’s Riddles Are Answered In The Movies”
Have you ever wondered where all of the villains that James Bond and his ilk faces recruit so many henchmen? Just imagine the costs involved in finding 5000 matching jumpsuits. Given the life expectancy of the run-of-the-mill foot soldier of the terrorist armies of the espionage thriller entertainment genre, it makes you wonder why anyone would take that gig. They must offer a competitive 401(k) and an unbeatable dental plan.

Ah, the great outdoors.

If movies have taught me nothing, they have taught me that if you are going to be a terrorist army bent on world domination, it's far better to lead that army than to be at the lowest rung. At least if you lead it you get to live until the end of the film, albeit at the cost of a more gruesome and specific ending! Ah, cinema.

The infinite stream of eager, if not overly bright henchmen to contend with, too, has plagued the First-Person-Tactical-Shooter genre ever since its dawn. All fans of this genre can share a lament about the pain and frustration of mowing down a hoard of enemies and clearing a zone only to have a bullet strike your back from an opportunistic bad guy who magically spawned in behind you. Or, heaven forbid, you should get pinned down near an event-generated spawn point, so that your dwindling ammunition is invested in bringing down that never-ending cornucopia of ill-doers.


Codemasters To The Rescue…Again?
It seems that whenever Codemasters isn’t defining a genre, they’re rejuvenating a damaged one. Do they get the same credit when they a repairing a genre they created and broke at the same time, well, the verdict is still out there.

Project: I’m Going In did almost as much to revitalize interest in the espionage one-man against the bad guys genus of PC games as the legendary James Bond: 007 did for the Nintendo 64 console system. Sure, we had the opportunity to engage one man against a horde of fire-spewing demons or mutated nuclear holocaust “survivors,” but Project: I’m Going In was one of the first titles to combine some of the finer AI of the day with the a powerful strategic element.

Perhaps a portion of that success is due in fact to the title behaving more like a combat simulation than as an arcade game for flash-and-dash. Take enough hits from a machine gun and no little box with a cross on it will be found in a silly barrel somewhere to make it all instantly better.

This lock doesnt take American Express

I.G.I. 2: Covert Strike promises to take all of the best features that made the predecessor so successful and make them richer while listening to the complaints and concerns of game players to remove and revamp all of the lowest points. In an April 2002 interview, Ole Marius Kohmann touched on some of the issues under the microscope this time around. One particular arena he promised they would fix is the lackluster AI of the first venture.


“Homer, If You Could Kill Three Or Four People On Your Way Out, I’d Sure Appreciate It”
While it is important to remember that this is a demo version, it is quite likely that the other levels that will come with the retail release of this single-player title will follow many of these assumptions on AI management.

One of the nicest improvements is the immediate limitation of infinitely respawning enemies. There are a finite amount of forces in a mission objective area for you to eliminate or to avoid on a strictly case-by-case basis. The number of enemies is static per level and is not affected by difficulty level. In terms of foes, the difficulty level determines their reaction time, the accuracy of their fire, the damage dealt by their fire, and their ability to detect your movement, sound, or fire.

Get 'em while they're hot!

Does this mean that the levels are lightly guarded? Absolutely not! The landscape is dotted by a collection of gun-wielding stooges either patrolling the thoroughfares of the area or engaged in conversation with other guards. In and of themselves, they can bring a tremendous amount of accurate fire upon an interloper. It is not enough to simply say that the AI is “improved” and hope to take it at a full face value. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, and one area where it truly shines through is in the “raise the alarm” function.

Henchmen may not be all that smart, but they aren’t stupid either. They know full well that their little 8 shot Makarov pistol is a pea-shooter in comparison to the hardware than could be aimed at them from the shadows and tree lines. Thus, if a guard should happen to detect your presence, be it by seeing your movement, hearing or seeing your fire, including the muzzle flash from your weapon, or finding the aftermath of your handiwork, that is to say a comrade with an exploded head for example, a chain of events will set into motion.

Aim here for best results

I’m Telling!
That guard may do one of a few actions, beginning with simply calling out for help from anyone who will listen. If you’ve done a good job and you have him isolated, his cries will fall on deaf and dead ears. He may also realize that he is outgunned and decide to abandon his post in favor of activating a camp-wide alarm. If you must attack an area with an alarm box, it certainly helps to aim for the troops that are closest to the alarm and keep it as protected as you can. However, reloading happens, and sometimes even the best defense can let a bad guy get through and press that big red, jolly candy-like button.

This is a bad development for your character as four aggressive troopers equipped with AK47 assault rifles soon augment the local forces. These storm troopers in ball caps not only bring superior firepower in terms of range, ammunition, and ballistic power, but they use their newfound intelligence to deploy other weapons in their pursuit of your skull. These weapons include flashbang noise and light diversionary devices which can stun and blind your character for several seconds, an eternity when you know that the man who threw it is not far behind with his AK to his shoulder. Enemy forces may also choose to use fragmentation grenades against you and save the expense of 7.62mm ammunition. Oddly enough, for as improved and immediate as the reaction of these defense forces can be, if they are inactive, they will not go active without severe provocation. A firefight can erupt just outside the barracks that house these men and they will not stir. Not until the alarm sounds at any rate.

The guards are human, after all, and hey, who wants to continually scan the same silly patch of ground over and over when you could have a motion-detector/security camera do the same boring job for you? If necessity is the mother of invention, then laziness is the father. The camera systems can prove to be wily foes, and in fact, the many cameras throughout the complex will prove more daunting a watchman to overcome than their human masters.

Two clever and pesky enemies

Say Cheese!
Like their fleshy counterparts, the camera systems increase in potency at higher difficulty levels. There is a rational increase in the difficulty setting of the game and the quickness with which the cameras will detect your presence and then sound the alarm. So, how do you deal with the camera systems, which can be just as deadly as any armed sentry? The easiest thing to do is to simply bypass them altogether. The cameras are mounted on swivels and have a set range of vision, and being machines, they scan back and forth with only a slight delay at the extreme ends of their range of motion. They also have a limited viewing range. If you see a sentry standing in a room with a camera and the camera isn’t going berserk every time it looks his way, guess what? He is standing beyond that proverbial “rope limit” line. That means that you can stand there safely, providing you first dispatch the sentry.

You may also choose a bit more aggressive tactic to handling the cameras. Shoot the blasted things. One well placed round and you are rewarded with a hail of showers and a bit of smoke and flame. On the lower difficulty levels, the only ill effect of this strategy is a waste of a perfectly good bullet. At higher levels, the destruction of the camera and the inevitable noise will attract the local goons to investigate. Burnt out light bulbs happen, sure, but security cameras rarely explode without provocation, and even the dimmest in AI henchmen knows this. Whichever method you choose, the goal is still to avoid detection as long as possible and to reduce the chances for the enemy to see you coming and to bring their superior firepower to bear.

Diplomacy Through Fire Power
Even the slickest among us will be detected. The network of patrols, cameras, and the noise of combat will attract attention. It’s not really a question of if in some cases, but when. Therefore, it certainly helps to have some offensive and defensive firepower at your immediate disposal.

Hope their deodorant is working

For this Infiltration mission, your character carries only a submachine gun, automatic pistol, and a knife. But then, you are a highly trained, skilled, world-class killing machine; so don’t be afraid to use your fists when the opportunity arises. After all, bullets cost money, but sneaking up behind a half-dozing sentry and twisting his neck like a car’s gas cap is free. Be thrifty through brutality. While certainly entertaining, the neck snap is a remarkably effective weapon. You can never miss, and thus, the risk of merely winging your opponent and allowing him to return fire is eliminated. As you will note the absence of healing kits about the level, you will soon learn an appreciation for every drop of blood you have.

The old adage is true, that if you must attend a gunfight, make sure you bring a bigger one with more ammo than the other guy. You are only one man, and thus, your firepower is considerably finite, but reliable. The sub-machinegun of choice is the old reliable Heckler & Koch (pronounced “Coke,” like the soda, by the way) MP5A3. It sports a 30-round magazine and can be selectively fired in a single round, three-round, or fully automatic configuration. You will want to monitor this selection carefully as you only carry 10 magazines into combat and full auto can guzzle your rounds almost as fast as you can insert a fresh magazine.

Gosh, I hate heights

The pistol of record is a silenced Glock 17. Highly accurate for a pistol and effectively silent and muzzle-flash free, you will quickly find these benefits far outweigh rapid fire and large capacity magazines. Few things stymie your opposition more quickly than a single stinging round clawing out of the darkness and tearing through their flesh. The pistol also has a secondary fire option, clubbing opponents with the butt of the weapon. Of course, if you’re close enough to use the pistol-whip, you should be close enough to use the knife or a choke move, but alas, in times of trouble, there are no rules. Just win, baby.

One of things I enjoyed most about this title is the lack of “power-ups” or packs of ammunition just lying about. You walk in with the MP5A3 and the Glock 17. Unfortunately, your enemy carries a mixed bag of AK47s, MAC-10s, and Makarovs. Gone is the chance to simply walk on top of a bad guys carcass and pick up his ammo and feed it into your weapon. This is why your fire must be accurate and your rate of fire conservative. You only get so many rounds before you are flat out. Fortunately, you can drop the weapon you are carrying, be it the SMG or the pistol, and pick up a new one from the ground near your opponent. At that time, you can use the old trick of picking up like weaponry for ammunition. Even that ammunition has its limits, and frankly, if you seek to sweep the field clean of your enemy, it does get a little tight on ammo late in the scrum.

GPS and Satellite tracking. Not too shabby

He With The Most Toys, Wins
If you are going to become an international counterterrorism specialist, then working for the United States and Great Britain wouldn’t be the worst gig you could secure. Both intelligence communities are lavishly equipped and financed and have some of the best gear imaginable to help you in your mission.

Possibly the most useful device imaginable is your PDA, or Mini-Computer. As a computer function, its primary goal is to send and receive mission data. On lower difficulty settings, the sending of mission data back to control saves your game progress at that point. You have only a few opportunities to save during the mission, and at the peak of the difficulty meter, you get no such luxury. What goes up must come down, and this is true of mission data too. You may retrieve mission data, and thus, reload a game from the last saved point.

An extended function of the PDA is its ability to connect to electronic keypads and to bypass the locking and security mechanisms. Mechanical locks, such as those holding shut chain link fencing and be easily bypassed with a well-placed bullet. However, should you wish to conserve ammo, to not draw attention to your position, or should you encounter a heavy door, you can always break out the trusty manual lockpicking tool set.

It slices, it dices, it opens electronic doors

The PDA links to a GPS giving your character an almost unfair advantage while outdoors. Spy satellites viewing the area can see and track your enemy’s movements in real-time and download its data to your PDA for analysis. Thus, you are able to view the presence of every guard who is not under the protection of a roof and to study his patrols, his exact direction of movement and facing, and his timing along his route. Again, “Fair” means that you go home after your mission is over, to heck with the bad guys.

As if seeing them outside isn’t magical enough, your character also carries a wonderful set of Night/Low Light Conditions goggles with a Thermal-vision filter. These two options coupled with adjustable range binoculars allow you to see very long distances into the darkness and pierce the gloom. The Thermal filter lets you view your enemy based on their body heat radiation. These goggles in real-world conditions work by detecting changes in levels of heat in the environment, and thus, suffer in very hot environments.

As fun as it is to play Predator, and to see your opponent even through a load-bearing solid-steel beam support column, something about the disingenuous nature of them bothers me ethically. For example, as you near the end of your mission there is a large industrial complex with roaring machines, and even a rock-grinder with blast furnace at one end. There should be substantial heat, along with the diminished optics in those conditions. It’s a small gripe, I know, but it does stand out.

Devilishly Clever
I.G.I. 2: Covert Strike has incorporated two additional features that add to the gameplay. One is not at all innovative, while the other is simply too clever to be accidental!

Thats right. I'm Bad!

All this sneaking around and avoiding patrols doesn’t help you a bit if the bad guys can see or hear you? How do you deal with that? The first, and most obvious, is not to be seen. The human eye is remarkably sensitive to movement, especially at night. Thoughtful and prudent use of shadows and dark areas will mask some movements, as will the presence of fences, barrels, concrete barriers and other obstacles. The other detection method that can give you away is the sound of footsteps. Running is a very noisy endeavor and is a sure way to attract attention should you venture too close to any but the most inept of guards. Therefore, toggle between walking and running any time you will be close to a patrolman. If you need to get extra close to reach out and touch someone, enter a crouch and creep up on your quarry. Crouching and lying prone are good methods of avoiding visual detection as well.

To aid you in your quest for stealth, the Heads-Up display on screen contains a small meter that will range horizontally along with your passage. If the meter is to the left, your presence is unnoticed and you are still relatively safe. However, any time it ventures to the right, you run the increased risk of detection and drawing fire. Remember, when it comes to machine gun fire, the same rules apply as apply for Christmas… it’s always far better to give than to receive. Use that meter, along with natural cover of darkness and slow movement to patiently, efficiently and methodically carve your way through the mission.

Extraction
I.G.I. 2: Covert Strike is a very nice title thus far. Equally challenging while still being reasonable. The AI is much improved without becoming super-human. Some effects, including the explosion of fragmentation grenades, could use some work, but for a demo version, this is a remarkable little title. When we reviewed the Multiplayer Demo, I was concerned that the single-player version might be equally inept and therefore leave no redeeming value for the entire I.G.I. 2: Covert Strike title. It is now clear that the multiplayer, had we reviewed it following this review, would have been noted to be more of an afterthought to an excellent single-player experience.

The second device that enhances gameplay that I mentioned before does more to increase the replay ability of the game than anything else. In time with practice, even the most novice player will become proficient at completing the demo version on the Easy difficulty setting. Shortly thereafter, the Normal difficulty setting will not be enough, and thus, Hard becomes the setting of choice. With each successful passage through the objective, an after-action breakdown appears, complete with the time spent from start to finish, the number of times detected, the percentage of health remaining, and a percentage of weapons accuracy. Lastly, and most devilishly, a final grade appears, increasing with success at higher difficulty levels. Had the demo simply ended when I completed the mission and had this screen never appeared, I would have been content to simply sign off, call it a cute little game, and move on. However, this score screen almost dared me to go back in and improve my time, or to finish with 100% health, or to keep my accuracy higher than the target. Eventually, even that wasn’t enough, and I found myself on the hardest difficulty setting trying to take down every guard with nothing but a fighting knife and the neck snap. Clever.

The download is certainly worth installing and giving a thorough walk-through. Most fans of the genre will find something worth applauding in this title, and we can only hope that the retail release includes more and improved weaponry and varied environments and missions to keep the attention of the considerate gamer. All in all, I.G.I. 2: Covert Strike is a winner.




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