Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever II

"A fun FPS, but also quite flawed..."

After recently buying a new GBA, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever was the first game I picked up, mainly because of the cheap price. My first impressions were that the game was utter crap and not worth playing but I was impressed after the first 15 minutes.

GRAPHICS
The graphics in the game aren't the best I've seen on the GBA but I liked the fairly retro sprites of enemies and other in game people. Your hand (as either Ecks or Sever) is quite well done as it is well drawn and is the complete opposite of the rest of the game, not blocky or choppy. (Just to avoid any confusion, I said "Your hand" because that is all you will see of the two agents). The weapons are very well drawn although when you go into precision aiming mode (press select) you can actually shoot anywhere on the screen without turning your weapon at all.

SOUND
The menu music is quite appropriate because it has a techno/futuristic feel which suits the style of the menu (and the movie) quite well. Gunshots sound quite realistic with ricochet sounds that reminded me of Goldeneye for the N64. Attack dogs bark loudly and the noise gets louder as you get closer until it jumps at you, complete with authentic attacking sound. Civilians will also run around screaming when a gun is fired or a dog begins to run across the area.

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay itself is fairly addictive as there are always some enemies to blast or some puzzles to solve. Having said that, the puzzles are usually pretty simplistic with the solution being something along the lines of smashing a pot or killing a certain enemy to obtain the required item or complete a certain objective. Although there is only one difficulty, enemies take more shots to kill and are equipped with better weapons as the game progresses. Missions are quite short and are usually fairly straightforward (a bit like Enter the Matrix).

WEAPONS
There is a nice range of weapons from the standard issue handgun (never runs out of ammo) to grenades, uzis, combat shotguns and rocket launchers. This keeps variety in the game as once you unlock a new weapon, you can spend a while figuring out how to use it best to kill your enemy. There are also extra features on some weapons like the rocket launcher where you can either fire the rocket in a straight line or get into some cover and fire the projectile, then steer it straight to the target's face. Weapons in the game have clear advantages and disadvantages so it is fairly easy to pick a weapon that best suits your method of play. An example would be a stealthy gamer using the combat knife to sneak up behind an enemy and kill them for a one hit kill or spray a room with machine gun fire then mop up with some grenades for the bolder player.

MULTIPLAYER
Now the multiplayer is really where the game shines. You have a frantic deathmatch against your opponent and duke it out across arenas, nailing each other in any way possible. All in all, a fun experience for a while until you realise that all you have to do is run at the opponent with the knife because it gets a one hit kill. Dagnabbit.

CONCLUSION
So you now know a bit more about the game, it's a bit of a laugh for a while or with friends until you get bored of repetitive action and leave the cartridge at the bottom of your game pile and let it gather dust...

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/11/05