24: The Game

"It's rough around the edges, but 24 fans should not miss this game."

24 is the only show I refuse to miss. Even taping it feels like I'm watering down an incredible experience. So naturally, when a game based on the show was announced, I was excited. I already had ideas going through my head: I wanted a third-person shooter that uses plenty of cover, like 007: Everything or Nothing. There would be a variety of missions and a fantastic story that ties up what may be the biggest gap in the series.

To my delight, that's almost exactly what they did.

A writer from the show penned the story, so those who like the show can relax; this is top-notch work. I'll admit, it's not quite what we get on the actual show, but it is definitely 24, through and through. That being said, it isn't that friendly to newcomers. The game assumes that you watch 24 (as you should!), so people who aren't familiar with the characters and setting will be lost. You could probably begin to understand it all as the game goes on, but you'll miss out on a lot of things that will delight 24 fans.

The story takes a number of twists and turns that I won't discuss here (of course), but I'll give you an idea of what it's like. It begins with Jack Bauer, a member of the Los Angeles Counter-Terrorist Unit (CTU), leading a team into a terrorist-infested ship that contains toxic substances. If the terrorists release it, it will contaminate the water. In the world of 24, this is a relatively tame threat, but as the game progresses, it spirals downward until the situation is very dire indeed. True to 24 fashion, this all occurs in a single day in "real time", or as close to it as the game can get. Naturally, depending on how quickly you move through the game, it could take you a lot less than 24 hours to play through it. Regardless, the game's story begins at 6 AM, and it ends at 6 AM the next day.

The graphics are pretty good. The characters all look like their TV counterparts, even if they aren't top-of-the-line graphics. A few character animations look a bit clunky, but cutscenes and lip-synching look wonderful. This brings me to the voice acting, which had the potential to make or break the mood of the game. Acting talent seems to carry over to voice acting, because the cast of 24 does an excellent job. Many games with voice acting cause a lot of eye rolling and unintentional hilarity, but not 24: The Game. And to top it all off, Sean Callery, the show's composer, made the soundtrack. This game looks and sounds like 24.

But all that means squat if it plays poorly, right? Thankfully, that's not the case. Most of the game is a third-person shooter that uses a lock-on system. You hit a button to lock onto an enemy, aim, and then fire. Many times you will have cover to work with as well, so you can wait until you have a clear shot and then pop out, gun blazing. Along the way you complete objectives, find new weapons, heal yourself with medkits, and save innocent civilians. You'll get a chance to play as several different characters from the show as the game progresses.

There are some flaws in the system. First of all, enemies almost never hit you when they're far away, but they'll mow you down in seconds once you get close. On top of that, getting close to an enemy can make it a lot harder to target them, since the camera has a bad habit of losing sight of your opponents in close combat. Finally, the melee attack button is also the button you use to search fallen enemies, which can cause mishaps when you're trying to beat someone up while near his fallen comrades. So you'll want to keep your distance at all times, but otherwise the shooting portion of the game is done well.

Sprinkled among the normal missions are driving missions and mini-game type missions. The driving missions are probably the worst part of the game. The handling on the cars isn't that great, and almost all of the missions consist of moving from point A to point B. Most of the time you'll have to deal with people trying to run you off the road, which can provide a little extra excitement to an otherwise dull mission, but that can get annoying as well, especially when you have to lose the people following you. To add insult to injury, the presentation isn't that good here either. Most of the time it's a very dull environment, and for some reason it often lacks music, or only plays it for a short time.

The mini-games are nothing special, but they add a bit of spice. The biggest mini-game is interrogation, which involves timing button presses to extract information from people. You have to get them to a certain level of pressure, either by intimidating them or calming them down. The rest of the mini-games are much simpler. Sometimes you have to use devices by finding paths through lines that correspond to buttons on the controller (er… it's hard to explain). Another mini-game involves quickly hitting buttons that match color-coded squares on the screen. These are nothing special, and they're often quite easy, but they don't really detract from the game at all.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't boast a whole lot of extras. There is no multiplayer, and most of the unlockables are things like character models that just aren't that exciting. There are a few things worth unlocking, like interviews with some of the actors/actresses from the show, but those are few and far between. At the end of each mission, you get a percent rating depending on how well you did, and a score of 90% or higher unlocks an extra. Of course, not everyone will have fun trying to score 90% or 100% in every mission. The game isn't short, but it's just not very long either.

24: The Game should not be missed by 24 fans. People who aren't familiar with the show would probably be better off with more polished third-person shooters, but I'd still recommend a rental if you're a fan of the genre. It's a good game, despite its flaws. If I were letting my bias towards the show sway me, the score would be 8/10, but I'm trying to rate it on its own merits, so...

OVERALL: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/14/06