WinBack: Covert Operations

"I don't know what these guys were drinking..."

     For those reviewers on this site who acknowledged the flaws in this terrible game, hats off to you. For those of you who love this game, READ MY TITLE! Now that my anger has been mostly assuaged, here follows my opinion of this awful game. The game is severely lacking in many areas, including graphics, story, sound, and controls.

     First, let's start on the graphics. I usually am not interested in dissing graphics, since these are just the method of getting the idea of the game through and I grew up with the Sega Genesis, so I'm not too picky. Yet this game blatantly fails due to its very dull, very repetitive graphics (i.e. Hope you like seeing lots of desks, boxes, signs, gray walls, and maybe a patch of grass here or there when you are outside). There is also no blood, which wouldn't be that bad except they replaced it with blue, green, and red marks/splashes (I have no idea what these are) which are completely lame. I wouldn't have a problem with this part if there was a counteracting element involved (storyline, gameplay, etc..). Sadly, there is none, but let's go on to why the story sucks.

     I have no experience with either the developer (Omega Force) or the producer (Koei) but it is very obvious what their intent was, which was simply to make a game into an interactive movie. This was a terribly impetuous move, which at first sounds and feels good (making rolls, ducking for cover and putting your back to a wall can be interesting for the first hour) but later turns into the reeking compost heap that it always was, simply because of the obvious flaws involved (recycled control scheme, repetitive and recycled music, repetitive and recycled gameplay, [notice a pattern emerging?] etc.). The storyline pretty much completely consists of THE MISSION (''Winback'' a high power satellite from these Sarcozian [What kind of name is that for a country?] rebels who want their country freed from the government pigs who have a communist hold... bla bla bla.. *snore* *snore* [Wake up! ''Buffy: The Vampire Slayer'' is on!] P.S: Bottom line is that you have to kill them all/stop the satellite from firing), your teammates dying one by one (feels like every five minutes to me), a whole lot of cursing (I think they got almost every word in the library) and a very cliche ''plot twist'' at the end. How exciting!...Not! So why do people like this game again?

     Okay, now that I have finished with that rant, allow me to begin on what the gameplay consists of. Ready? Here goes: Run to wall/Press A/Press R/Shoot guy/Release R/Press A/Run to next wall/Press A/Press R/Shoot guy/Release R/Press R/Shoot other guy/Release R/Press A/Roll to barrel/Press R/Release Z/Shoot new guy/Press Z/Release Z/Shoot second guy in head/Run to just-like-the-first-wall wall/Press A/Press R/Shoot stupid guy/Shoot laser switch/Release R/Press A/Run to exit/See just-like-first-room room.../Lose 50 I.Q. points.../See final ''plot twist'' and groan heart out../See end and shoot own head for all the hours of your life wasted for this game... Hopefully you can see that I exaggerated in the second part. I did NOT exaggerate in the first part. Really, that is what all 31 levels basically consist of. The really sad part is that the people hardly move. Once they have found ''cover'' (a laugh since this is usually a box which is ineffective since you kill them anyway) they stand stock-still (hardly a surprise since Jean does the same when aiming). Sometimes people will run away or towards you, but often once the guy sees you, he doesn't move an inch till you shoot him. Just plain sad. It is obvious that Koei tried hard to put replay into this game (three additional modes and multiplayer) but for me, the modes are not dissimilar enough and I don't use multiplayer.

     Okay, the sound isn't too bad, just that it is recycled and the music has two settings: forgettable if volume is set low, and annoying/too repetitive if volume is set high.

     Now the final part, control. The control of the game isn't too bad, but it wasn't done well, simply because the camera and the controls work together against the gamer as well as some terrible ideas. The way the camera works is not good. The camera will try to stay behind Jean, but is sometimes too slow and if you want to walk through a door as you are turning fast to get a better time, you may end up putting your back to the wall next to the door instead of walking through it. Also, the C-left/right camera moves don't always work very well (especially while aiming) and the camera doesn't move fast enough sometimes. The terrible ideas are in the shooting/aiming sector. For some reason Koei/''Omega-Farce'' had this brilliant (hah!) idea to make the A button the ''action'' button. Sounds like the guy that mentioned ''a complete rip-off of Zelda'' hit the nail on the head. Well there is a major problem with this button, for you see, this button shoots, rolls, puts you to the wall, opens doors, and picks up items, but does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING if there is nothing else interacting with it (i.e. you're standing in a field with nothing near you and you're just pressing A). Had Koei done the smart thing, the A button would be the ''shoot'' button, R would be ''aim'', the C-buttons would be the same as well as the Z button, the L button would be the ''action'' button, and the left/right D-buttons would be the sidesteps. I just came up with a control scheme that would solve control problem numero uno: Being able to move while firing. But no! Koei's logic: that would make the game much too simple to beat, we must make it difficult and frustrating! That way, anyone who plays this will go insane, thus keeping the number of new consumers constant and not decreasing. Because of such false logic, Jean must now stand stock-still to fire, thus clearing the way for James Bond/Gabe Logan to fill him with holes with a trusty ZMG/M-16 while dancing rings around him, whereas Jean is stuck with only 5 weapons which don't even have names (C-4 won't count, since only if you memorize the setup of the bads appearance is it worth using at all).

     It is obvious that Koei was striving for a good game, but they have failed miserably. It doesn't even deserve a rental. If you want to rent out of curiosity, go ahead, but buying this is a waste of space and money.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 02/02/02, Updated 02/02/02