Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter

""Grand Theft Auto in Space?" Hardly, but a decent game in any case."

I rented this game from the local Hollywood Video when they did not have the great NCAA Football 2004. For a first-person shooter though, it is actually quite decent. Mace is about, well, a former cop (come on, that\'s all he was was space police basically) who somewhat screws up on a mission and is sent to prison. When he gets out he wants revenge and becomes a bounty hunter to find answers. That\'s about all I could get from the hard to understand dialouge. But enough about gripes, this is only the opening paragraph. On to the actual review.

Graphics 5/10

Oh boy.....Well, I will say I like the space atmospheres. Lots of bright lighting and what not. However, the crease in the middle of the areas is pretty lame. When you get into the shooting levels though, well that\'s when things go downhill. At times the game can look good, and then it can look bad (break up, huge slown down just from walking, you get the idea). Yet, things like character models and shrubs (you can cleary see the boxes around the shrubs)look absolutely muddy and downright horrid. I knew that the Playstation 2 version would look the worst of the three, but this is just bad. The previews I saw last year looked better than the final product. While graphics in no way determine how fun a game is, it is just sad that with all the time spent developing this game they could have atleast done a half decent job with the graphics. Instead it looks like another rushed game.

Sound 7/10

Where the graphics fall flat on its pixelated face, the sound is good. While the voice acting is bad and hard to understand, the music suits the game rather well. It really gets you into the mood of accomplishing your objectives. One level in paticular is the cruise ship where you must change the coordinates of the ship so that it won\'t crash into anything. I was down to just seconds and the music was really high tempoed and quick which added suspense of whether I would live or die. Indeed the music made that part one of the more interesting ones of the game. As for the weapon sounds, pretty typical gun shots and the electric weapons sound just like all the other electric weapons. Overall though, not bad.

Game play 6/10

For a game that was promoted as \'\'Grand Theft Auto in space\'\' I sure do fail to see where that comes into play. Well, I guess in a sense I can since you do take jobs and you do \'\'borrow\'\' a ship or two (which ends right back on the station or colony that you took it from anyway), but that could easily be called \'\'Hitman in space\'\' or \'\'The Getaway in space\'\' or something like that. When I think \'\'Grand Theft Auto in space\'\' I think of: jumping out of my ship in the middle of a fight, floating over to another one, breaking in, killing the pilot, fliying that ship. Sadly, we have none of that. Though I have to admit that the other aspect that was promoted with this game, the whole going from hangar to space without any loading screens, was pulled off rather nicely as it gives off a very cool feel. The overall game though is rather long which is nice. But I will say that the AI can be extremely cheap, esp. in the later levels. Some parts you may be doing over and over again, so it is a big turn off. It is also a pretty linear game based around getting from point A to B and in the process cleaning out every room of enemies before advancing. But despite the utter crap you must put up with sometimes it is a rather fun game.

Control 6/10

At first the game plays extremely slow. I mean it is just really hard to get use to, and although you never really do get use to the pace of the game, you do get use to it. The jumping physics are horrible though. There are quite a few jumping puzzles with leaps that seem nearly impossible to make. So if you are the same type of gamer like me, then you will think that that isn\'t the right way. But eventually you do find that it\'s the ONLY way. Still, there\'s another problem with jumping. You almost slide before you make the jump so sometimes you fall way down or to your death. It is rather annoying, esp. in a rough situation. But the bad controls do not end there. Space fighting can be a serious pain. The joysticks are way too sensitive and trying to take down a ship usually turns into a long game of chasing where you have a small chance of ever getting in a clean shot. This also goes back to the poor AI as when you are going around in full circles the enemie ships still manage to stay directly behind you. I guess other than those quirks though, the game plays exactly like all other FPS on PS2, so that is not bad.

Overall 6/10

Now I am not saying this game sucks. In fact, it\'s rather enjoyable. There are just quite a number of problems with it. I\'m sure I haven\'t even named them all, but for a game that was built up to be as great as it sounded, it sure did fall short. The same thing kind of happened with Turok Evolution as it was suppose to be \'\'the greatest Turok\'\' ever, and despite the fact that it was fun, it did not live up to the other Turok games. This however has no previous game to live up to, so you can cut this one some slack. It is probably not a good game for novice FPS gamers, as it can be really frustrating in the later levels. I consider myself pretty good at FPS, but even this game got me pissed off from time to time. It just feels so unfinished in a lot of areas that it could have been much better with say another six months. If there ever is a sequel, I hope it is a lot better than this one. As for renting or buying this one, i\'d go with a rent as it is a pretty good rental. But if you want to buy it, wait for it to go down to $20 because that\'s about all that it is worth.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/03