A cold war is never over. Review

A cold war is never over.

“In the all too near future, acts of terrorism plague the world more and more

frequently. Only one strike force can defend humanity from the rising tide of

violence: the Special Intelligence Operations Network (SION). Despite this tremendous

team, terrorism continues to mushroom. And some are beginning to suspect that

these seemingly random acts of violence might be part of a larger conspiracy.

Are these incidents simply isolated acts, or is there some connection? As a

SION recruit, you are among the best operatives from the world’s most elite

intelligence agencies. You can choose between 8 different SION operatives to

play. Each operative is an expert in their field. Where one is a computer genius,

another is an expert in biomechanical engineering. And demolition specialists

join forces with masters of reconnaissance. In a world gone mad, the price for

freedom is Vigilance.”

Vigilance

has all the makings of what should be a really awesome, must-have game. It captures

the look and feel of a gritty post cold war, new world order, melee, free-for-all

spy movie like the new Robert DeNiro flick Ronin or the classic La

Femme Nikita. Vigilance is a world of ex-NSA, KGB, and FBI agents

and other counter-terrorist elements.

The storyline is engaging and realistic. The characters have cool backgrounds,

which add to the story and even cooler voice-overs, which add to their individuality

and help to flesh them out. But then you play the game, and it ends just being

very, very mediocre when you compare it to other games of the action shooter

genre. It just lacked pizzazz, and I’ll tell you why…

The music is cool and gives you that hair raising spy drama tingle. However,

it is also preset and doesn’t do anything special like change depending on your

activity.

As the game loads it starts explaining the controls to you, which I thought

was mentionable. Makes it easy to jusp right in and start playing.

The graphics are good, especially when 3D accelerated, although they are nothing

to wow about. There’s nothing special about the graphics you haven’t seen before

in modern 3D games, nor are they artistic. They are simply good and functional

for a game of this genre. The best graphics comparison would be to GoldenEye

for N64. Even the blood and bullet holes in the walls and scenery look like

GoldenEye. And like GoldenEye the bodies of your enemies eventually

disappear, as do the bullet holes. I think it would have been nice if the bodies

and destruction left behind actually became part of the scenery. It would add

to the realism. No such luck.

Also too, for a game that boasts high realism, the characters themselves still

look like video game characters rather than giving them the illusion of being

alive. What I’m referring to are games like Quake II

or Unreal where the game characters give off a more

life like appearance, with life-like movements and even simulated breathing.

Segasoft should have taken more time in graphical character details.

A nice bonus

is that there are three different perspective options to view you character

and play in (3rd person, up close 3rd person and 1st person). Overall, though

the graphics are good, the game play and character handling was a little choppy.

I found myself getting frustrated when targeting a bad guy, knowing full and

well that my crosshairs were properly aligned with his head, firing off three

to four shots and still missing. This, of course was not beneficial to the welfare

of my character.

After fiddling a little more with the mouse settings and taking the time to

understand the game’s physics dynamics, I found the controls a little more manageable.

That’s probably the biggest flaw of this game. Control is just not as sharp

as many of its competetors.

A nice thing about Vigilance is the multitude of weapons you get to

choose from. You have access to an arsenal of over 40 deadly weapons and power-ups

ranging from the Viper sub-machine gun and the Nitro 800 Ball Gun and more.

Vigilance was about average in multiplayer mode over HEAT.NET. It wasn’t

spectacular or anything to rave about, then again it was free so who am I to

complain. What was nice was the fact that you had 8 different agents to choose

from which made it easy to tell each other apart during team vs. team multiplay

. This was better than many other games like Quake II or Unreal

where, although you’re able to change the skins, you’re essentially all playing

the same character, making it somewhat difficult to distinguish your buddies

from your enemies during intense fighting.

Vigilance, has a compelling realistic story, which is complimented by

realistic battlefield settings and missions. Overall, Vigilance is a game worth

having, rather than returning for store credit if you get it as a gift. It is

a fun game; just nothing revolutionary or breathtaking. The minor control flaws

and uninspired graphics just hold this one back a little when compared to other

modern marvels like Half-Life and Shogo.