Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter

"Good Concept, flawed gameplay, average experience"

Mace Griffen Bounty Hunter had an amazing concept. Transitions between First Person Shooting on ground to flight combat is space. It was supposed to be an epic storyline rich and filled with detail. And the gameplay was supposed to be phenomenal with great graphics and effects. These kind of promises are easily broken in the past, and apparently they are just as easy to break today.

Gameplay: 6/10
The Gameplay in MGBH was in the standard FPS fashion. It wasnt anything spectacular or unique, its just like all the other first person shooters. The controls were quite easy to pick up and handle, with no major flaws in it. The controls for the ship were easy to handle, and I really liked how you could move around in the ship instead of just being in the cockpit. The game starts off pretty fun, the guns unique and neat, all with secondary fire modes that are unique. But eventually the gameplay gets a tad repetitive. I seemed to be finding myself in the same scenario over and over again: I'm in a maze of hallways, shooting at stuff, and sometimes in space, shooting at stuff. The ''State-of-the-art'' AI wasn't anything special. When I heard of this type of AI, I was hoping for partners fighting beside me, and smart enemies, which I found out that this great AI didnt really supply me with either. The Enemies were not really that intelligent, the enemy AI in Metal Gear Solid 2 and Red Faction 2 was much more smarter, and I didnt even like RF2.

Story 4/10
They said it was a deep plot, but it turned out to just be like another action movie style plot. You play as Mace Griffen, part of the rangers. They were set up and he was put to jail for 10 years. And when hes released, *gasp*, he wants revenge. basically its every action movie ever made, and personally, I though almost every action movie ever made did a better job at that type of storyline.

Graphics 3/10
These graphics in this game looked like it game from a Super Nintendo. The graphics were terrible in the game, the textures looked painted on and were many times in it just one color, providing no real realistic-looking graphics in it. The faces in the game were terrible, something that reminded me of Deus Ex, but atleast at the time, Deus Ex's graphics were the best they could do, this was just disgraceful. And it gets worse in the Cutscenes where the figures and colors look even more terrible. And there are many bugs in the game which will make you fall in an eternal pit of blackness that doesnt even kill you, but instead make you have to restart a mission all over from your last checkpoint.

Sound 6/10
The sound effects were nothing stellar, ofcourse sound effects rarely are. I found that there was a lack of ambient noise most of the time in the game aswell. The music was decent, it was also very well coordinated, where it would increase during the heat of power, and almost diminish while alone and exploring. So for the most part you could say the sound just may be the best feature in the game, and thats not saying much.

Replay Value 0/10

Theres really no real replay value, no secret areas or hidden items, its just straightforward and then, poof, roll credits.

Play time 5/10

The play time isnt bad. Theres about 13 missions in total, each of which may take you anywhere from 15 to an hour to beat depending on how good you are and how fast you can play. You can pretty much beat this game anywhere from 3 hours to 10 hours of gaming.

Overall: 5/10

The game is a huge disappointment for me. For a game with so much potential, it fell into the evil, demonic grasp of Mediocrity. Its not really a bad game, but not a good game either. If you HAVE to play it, definitely rent it, or better yet, if a friend has it, borrow it off of them, they're probably sick of playing it anyways.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/03, Updated 06/24/03