Ice Nine

"An excellent shooter, released 2 years too late...."

A few years back, GBA developer Torus was working on an impressive GBA shooter titled Ice Nine. After several delays, it has now been released at the incredibly affordable $20 price range. After so long, is it still any good?

-Introduction-
Ice Nine is one of those rare action titles released on the GBA that totally blow away whatever doubts one may have about the system's capabilities. It works incredibly well, emulating and implementing features that can be found in many current PC and console shooters. Ice Nine is simply astounding from a technical standpoint. While it's gameplay is almost nothing new to shooter veterans, it's still damn good fun.

-Story-
Ice Nine is about as story-driven as most shooters get. Whilst it isn't as bare-bones as Duke Nukem Advance or the classic Doom ports, it doesn't go out of its way to become a lengthy best-selling John Grisham novel like Ecks vs. Sever. The story usually unfolds in small panels, with the speaking character next to it. The plot moves at a quick pace, and it isn't hard to figure out what is happening. The only thing I didn't like was the rather anti-climatic and somewhat predictable ending. Full of twists and intrigue, but not slowed down to a molasses's pace by bad writing.
SCORE: 9/10

-Graphics-
This game sports the best 3D graphics ever to grace this little handheld. The backbone of the Ice Nine engine is the same 3D ray-casting engine that powered the graphically superior Duke Nukem Advance. The same development team has added a number of tweaks and additions and have polished the engine to a near perfect state. Some things from the old version of the engine remain, such as unavoidable pixelation and the way speech is told in panels. The game's HUD is nice, clean, and unobtrusive--a major plus. Most of the game's level design and architecture is done very nicely. All the textures and graphics used reflect upon the realistic settings used in the game. The lighting is spectacular, and most impressive is the implementation of night-vision goggles. Next are the enemy and weapon models. While the guns don't carry their real-life names, the hand models look startlingly like their real-life counterparts. The enemy models are sometimes detailed to the extent that you can see things like the nuances of their bullet proof vests or their MP5 in hand as they take a few slugs in the chest.
SCORE: 10/10

-Sound-
The game's soundtrack isn't as impressive as its graphics. Most of the audio in the game is mainly gun shots and explosions. While the explosions sound massive, booming and entertaining, a few of the gunshot sounds fall short. Ice Nine only features one piece of music, which is the main theme. The main theme is catchy, but after a while it becomes corny and on the whole, annoying as hell. This main theme is only played during the game's menus and dialogue pieces--there is no music during gameplay. Unlike Duke Nukem Advance, Torus Games--the same group of developers--decided to skimp on the voice-acting. There's almost no speech, except for the occasional enemy shouting "HEY!" before opening fire.
SCORE: 7/10

-Gameplay-
Gameplay is what matters the most. Ice Nine's gameplay doesn't bring anything entirely new to the FPS genre. In fact, what may be seen as innovation on the GBA scene might be viewed as ancient elsewhere--many of the new features found here have been present in PC and console shooters for a long time. Most of the game comprises of lots of shooting, with a bit of applied thinking and strategy. The first fifth of the game comprises of dull and boring training missions. The problem with these missions is that they're devoid of any entertainment, and one of these training challenges is actually tougher than the rest of the game as a whole. The game doesn't really pick up the pace until about a third of the way through, and by that time many players may have already lost interest.

Ice Nine introduces many interesting aspects. Some of these are well developed, some of these are incredibly simplified and some of them are introduced and then never actually used again in the game. One of these features involves a unique scoring system. In a public place full of civilians your HUD will have 2 markers: one indicating how many enemies you've killed and one indicating how many civilians you've killed. You don't fail the mission for shooting a civilian but you do lose points in your score at the end. This system is only actually used during the training missions--the real missions are either completely devoid of civilians, or the mission is set up so that shooting a civilian means mission failed. Another is the night vision feature. It would be incredibly helpful to have it around during many of the dark areas of the game. Unfortunately, this very cool feature is only used twice during the course of the game. Lastly, there is the notion of stealth. Stealth in Ice Nine has been incredibly simplified. More often than not you can just shoot your way through stealth levels because the game implies that it's given you non-lethal ammunition for your weapons. This doesn't make too much sense, since the lethal ammunition from your enemy's weapons can be used in your guns too.

No first person shooter would be complete without a well-rounded and balanced arsenal. Ice Nine features seven real-world weapons. Each of them have been modeled accurately in accordance to their real-life counterparts, while sacrificing enough realism to make the game fun. For example, anyone with common sense would know a sniper rifle will kill in one hit. In Ice Nine, it takes away only a third of your health. A nice second (and perhaps third) chance at nailing some of those pesky snipers that can be found in the campaign. A second example is the game's MP5. The MP5 has a very rapid firing rate, but does very little damage and is highly inaccurate at long ranges. The most interesting aspect of Ice Nine's weapons is the ability to zoom in and out at will. Only 3 other shooters have introduced sniping: the two Ecks vs Sever games, and 007: Nightfire. Ecks vs Sever allowed the player to zoom in, but they could not turn or move. Nightfire actually allowed the player to turn around while scoping in. Unlike these two games,Ice Nine allows players to zoom in up close, zoom out, and rotate the scope. It might not sound like much to someone who's never played some of the older generation "realism" shooters on the GBA, but it's a very impressive, considering the GBA's capabilities.

The combat of Ice Nine can be thrilling and challenging, or frustratingly dull and difficult. Often, the adrenaline will be flowing when 5 enemies are bearing down on you while you have only your trusty MP5 and a few rounds to finish them off. Other times one may be annoyed when they are killed by the same RPG wielding enemy, only because they were placed in the level in such a way that it can be hard to kill them without placing yourself at risk. The game's enemies aren't too difficult. They're actually quite stupid. While they may fall back from a fight once in a while, they usually stand there and shoot, move a bit, then stand still again and keep shooting. Also, any enemies in the area will sometimes converge upon your location.

Lastly, there's the game map. The game map is probably the most useful and most game-killing feature of Ice Nine. Not only does it plot out the layout of the level, but it also shows approximately where all your enemies and objectives are located. This helps reduce a lot of frustration that might occur, but it also kills some of the suspense in some of the game's more tense missions.
SCORE: 9.5/10

-Conclusion-
Overall, Ice Nine is quite a well-tailored game. Shooter fans may want to add it to their collection, and GBA gamers new to the FPS scene will surely enjoy this game. It's definitely recommended for anyone who also enjoyed the Ecks vs Sever games. Ice Nine is simply incredible game, and released at a bargain bin price.

TOTAL: 9/10
(Not an average)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/23/05