WinBack: Covert Operations

"Action packed stealth game for the n64...greatest n64 action game!"

Well let me begin by saying this game had NO hype. It was december when I picked this game up to play with some friends, and when I put it in I watched the intros and all that, and when I started playing, I was simply amazed already. I'll split this down into some smaller parts.

Graphics: 9

Well let's see, these are great graphics for n64, especially for Koei's first try on a n64 game, and a relatively small cartridge. Jean Luc, the main character has hundreds of different movements, and they are all very realistic. When you are shooting bullets,they clink to the ground, and there's that fire blast from the guns when you shoot. The flashlight looks great and the graphics are great. I would have given it a 10, but the fog gets in the way sometimes.

Gameplay: 9

Wow! Awesome! This game has rolls, flip around the corner and shoot, ducking, all sorts of stuff like that. With an armanment of a handgun, sub-machine gun, 12 gauge shotgun, rocket launcher, silence pistol, and c-4, there's lots of ways to kill your enemy (though I wish the handgun didn't have infinate ammo, since it is a little overused) The guards aren't all that smart (except the knife guys...watch out for them) because the n64 couldn't handle a lot of badguys running around (sorry, it's the truth) so most of them had to stand in place. This was ok though, since on hard a shotgun blast to the head could kill you. The levels sometimes may get repetitious, but I can see their uniuqeness (going through the game my 7th time! I'll get to that later) and there are 4 different types of levels..(outside grounds, factory, sewers, and control) So there's plenty to go through, with 31 levels and plenty of bosses to fight.

Replay: 10

Some people say it is repetitious, I disagree. I played through it easy, and unlocked a mode. Then I went through normal, and unlocked some characters. Then through hard and unlocked another mode and more characters. I played through easy and hard again, and it was little repetitious because nothing was new. My now very good winback skills made me try out ''sudden death'' and ''max ammo'' modes, where I was in for a surprise. Max ammo was really fun and easy, having infinate of everything, I just shot streams of rockets at the enemies. But on sudden death, EVERYTHING died in one hit, including yourself. Sometimes I'd slip up and just die because of one meager little shot, but I loved it....it was tense. I killed bosses in one hit, and crates and everything. So overall, replay is great, with trial mode to get PERFECT scores on every level available after you beat it, you can unlock a ton of boss characters to play in 1v1 multiplayer, and some more 3/4 player characters. This game has kept me the most entertained in my entere n64 library.

Overall: 9

I would love to give this a 10 (I think it deserves it) but I had to take some points off for the minor things. The camera control is GREAT if you know what you're doing, if not, then tough luck and learn it. Some people say it gets hard against the wall, I think it's very easy to do...but I guess I've played enough Winback to master the controls. I can compare this game to syphon filter for playstation with mission impossible graphics....it's a must have for action fans with a n64. I call this the most underrated game of the year, and the sleeper hit of the year....I keep pretty good watch on video games coming out, and this one just came out of nowhere. Great job Koei, and I hope to see a Winback 2!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/00, Updated 06/24/00