BackTrack

"No Backtracking here, they just shipped this out the door as fast as they could"

First of all, I'd like to give this game a little credit for its nice FMV introduction. It really impressed me untill I played the game. Right away I knew something was wrong when I started to see the same floor and wall tiles over and over again. I started to get annoyed when my gun fired about 3 seconds after I pressed the fire button. I was angry when I died for the fifth time from one bullet, and I shut off my GBA in rage when I figured out I have just wasted over 10 hours of my life searching for a secret door. I'll summarize the review as follows:

Presentation: 8/10

Very nice. The FMV introduction is impressive, and the menu is colorful and very stylish. About the only good part about the game. Battery sae also brings up the score.

Graphics: 3/10

Yeah, it's 3D. But just barely. If you want your 3D choppy, muddy, and completely lifeless. First of all, you don't shoot enemies. No, you shoot lifeless paper dolls with four frames of animation: walking, shooting, dying, and a lump of grey pixels on the ground. Ah, the quality. You will see the same exact 3 wall tiles throughout the game, and you have no ceiling. I guess that took effort.

SOund: 4/10

SOme of the music is a little catchy,sci-fi mix, espesially the menu music. However, there are only about 3 audio trcks, so prepare for boredom. The weapon effects basically consist of ill shreeks and ''bleeps''. yes, better sound effects can be produced with a Game Boy COlor. They use the same door opening sound for going up and elevtor, shooting someone with a vacuum cleaner(yes, you read correctly), and stepping. Not much variety here.

Gameplay: 2/10

Yes, it should be this harsh. First of all, there is no way to aim up or down(in Ecks vs Sever you could duck), and there is no auto-aim feature, which cannot be excused because you turn R E A L L Y slow, and you are usually dead by the time you make a full 360. The gameplay of Backtrack basically boils down to this; go into room, kill paper dolls, recue lifeless unanimted stills of humans, search for secret door for 7 hours, find it, get killed, rinse, lather, shake and repeat. I guess the secret doors were supposed to be ''creative', but they are just incredibly tedious. The ONLY reason I am giving this a 2 is because shooting things is fun, and it will always be. However, this shooting is just barely acceptable, as it is about as fun as feather dusting.

Lasting Appeal: N/A

You are never going to fnish this game. Trust me.

Multiplayer: 5/10

Not bad. Still got the paper dolls, but the single-player multiplayer is nice, although there are only six levels. But it is a little low-end, simply because you cannot pick up new weapons. Each multiplayer charecter has their own specific weapon, and this allows for one lame battle, simply because there is usually very little variety in the fight.

In conclusion: I have told you all you need to know. Go get Ecks Vs Sever or Doom instead. Back away from Backtrack.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 03/23/02, Updated 03/23/02