Go Fanboy - Everyone Has A Favorite

If you break it down to the simplest form, there are only two types of games: those that you like, and those that you dislike. Myself, I love adventure games heavy on storyline and character development, with plenty of item-based puzzles.

I like lots of action, comedy, and ease of play. What I don’t like is...well...Hidden and Dangerous. That’s not to say that I don’t like the game in particular, but the genre itself is simply not to my like. Other games in this area, such as the hit Rainbow Six, as well as its upcoming sequel, Rogue Spear, rely too much on planning every nitpicking detail that I can’t find any room left for the fun.

But then again, this is just my point of view; many people totally get into the thousands of options and commands that are put into your hands. It’s a type of game for control freaks, the kind who want to be in control of every character, what they say, what they do, when they do it, and how to pull it off. That’s not to say that having a slew of options on your side is a bad thing, because it’s not. However, I personally believe that if you want to run a military unit, join the army. Because when it comes to separating the men from the boys, it’s likely not going to be a heck of a lot of fun.

So in order to remain fair in this game breakdown, I’m going to have to put aside my selfish biases and pretend that I like these sort of games. I’m telling myself that I love pushing endless two-button combinations to execute commands. I adore having to memorize the instruction manual cover-to-cover. Hmm . . . I don’t think I’m convincing myself. However, it doesn’t really matter if I like the genre or not; Hidden and Dangerous just has too many other quirky problems to save it from being K.I.A.

Visuals:: Amazingly enough, Hidden and Dangerous manages to feel good without looking good, because looks it certainly doesn’t have. By feel I mean that the environments have a painstakingly realistic feel associated with them. Even if there is fog, bad texturing, and a low polygon count, the game can still miraculously make you feel like you are sneaking around in whatever location you happen to be in. Thanks to some nice environment effects like rain and snow, the game has a mystical power of entrancement that sort of takes over while your playing. You do feel like you’re in the game. Alas, certain side effects of these nice effects cause some major hampering on the graphics engine, and half the time it simply can’t keep up.

The draw distance is a total mixed bag. Admitted, when it’s raining, it’s supposed to be hard to see, but let’s face it folks, the rain in the game isn’t that heavy. This was a poor excuse to fog up the game in an attempt to hopelessly save the game’s frame rate. Houses will miraculously draw themselves in front of your eyes, and although there are some nice lighting effects, the same fog will engulf it after only a few meters of walking away from the source. Later levels of the game that take place in clear weather don’t have the fog (thankfully), but instead the game engine stutters more than a motor boat engine, and it actually makes you more susceptible to getting hit by the enemies bullets.

The next structure to come tumbling down is the texture-mapping. I guess this is all that can be expected from a blurred-up PC port. Ground textures literally have no substance, walls look overly stretched and blurry, characters have minimal features, and plant life might as well be ugly 2D sprites. Like I mentioned, the weather effects are cool, but it’s not like the rain actually makes a splash on the ground or remotely changes the land contour. Water looks flat and lifeless, as well. The lack of a decent polygon count doesn’t help either, and due to some major flaw during development, seams between polygons stick out like Pee Wee Herman in an adult theater (it’s way too noticeable). I don’t think the ground was meant to have big fault lines all the time...

I supposed what I meant about the game having the right feel is simply that despite the poor graphical performances and slowdown, level design is good. Everything fits like it should, and the world is accurately recreated. Too bad the game just doesn’t have the engine to support it. Sheesh!

Audio:: Ah, perhaps the only saving grace, Hidden and Dangerous’ combination of great-sounding effects and moody music fit the game like a pair of gloves. Everything from firing your weapon, reloading, the sound of your feet hitting the ground, to the rain and thunder, the sound effects are top notch. Faithfully recreating the aural environment of the battle field, this too helps to maintain the flow of the game. There are only a few voice samples (mainly the ones that are usable to make commands to your fellow soldiers), but what’s there sounds appropriate to the setting.

I can’t say that there is much music all together, but I’m going to bring in the realism factor here: on the battle field, there wouldn’t be any music anyway. Therefore, there are some times that the absence of music enhances the background noises and makes you feel more secluded, more at war. When the music does kick in, let’s say when one of your men die, there is a drastic and mood-shifting melody that plays. It will then kick into another quiet tune to play in the far background until another important event occurs. The music isn’t always totally present, but it fits in there when it should. Good job in this department.

Gameplay/Control:: Why is it that I always get stuck with the games that really seem to fail in this area. Ah well...

Once again, I’m going to do my best to remain neutral about the type of gameplay with which we are dealing. As I mentioned earlier, Hidden and Dangerous is a mission-based title on which you simply go from location to location with a different set of objectives to complete each time. You are thoroughly prompted before each mission, and there is substantial background data for your needs. Before each mission, you are granted the right to chose all of your men for the campaign and the type of weaponry and items you need to take along (as well as the amounts and proportions of each). Of course, if that doesn’t float your boat (it is a bit tedious), you can just have the go with the auto setup and just play the game from a default stance. The purpose here is to create the best team that will be suited for the mission at hand. Each soldier has differences in his endurance level, reaction speed, strength, stealth, and shooting ability. You’ll need to correctly balance these out to be affective in your campaign.

However, where this game differs from other titles of the genre is in the tactfulness, or should I say, lack there of. While you are free to chose the above settings, you don’t get to chose your starting position or formation, and there is no real pre-planning of the missions. What this means is that the missions will basically play the same way every time. Beyond that, while you are given your objectives, there is not always a clear solution. Some times you’ll have to wander around (hoping you or your men don’t get killed in the process), and other times you’ll just accidentally complete a mission. Where’s the tactics in that?

On top of that, the AI is pretty lame. Within your team, you are free to switch to any character at any time and take control of them, but likely the rest of your team will suffer. It takes some expert guiding to get your team to cooperate, and often times you’ll have to consistently bark out orders to tell them to move their lazy butts (all the screaming really helps with the stealth factor...). As for enemy AI, it’s pretty much shoot and destroy. The enemy doesn’t bother to use any stealth either, and they’ll often just walk up to you and start shooting. This can make for easy target practice for you or a quick death. It varies on how responsive you are during the game. Another case of AI lapse is the fact that you can shoot right next to people who aren’t facing you, and they won’t even notice. Yeah, it makes these hard levels (even on the easy setting) a tad easier, but there’s no fun in shooting fish in a barrel (at least not for very long).

You can forget about collision detection; the developers must have thrown out this "controversial" idea early in production, because it’s just not there. Walking is far too slow, and turning around is even slower, and this will often get you stuck in a wall while a parade of soldiers shoot you down. Where’s the fun in that? You can switch to a run mode (using one of the great two-button combos), but then that’ll be far too fast. Trying to climb a ladder can be near impossible, because it’s tough to face it in just the right way for your character to be able to grab hold of it. Yuck.

Shooting is a little easier depending on which method you’re using. If you’re in the third person perspective (either with the near camera or the far away camera), targeting is close to impossible. The game relies on pushing so many buttons at once, that you can’t walk, turn, duck, and shoot without taking ten seconds to figure out what buttons to push for each. More often than not, you’ll just die because you forgot the correct combination. It’s like keeping your money in a safe that required 40 passwords to get in; it’s just not healthy for the mind. Switching to the first person sniper mode makes things a little easier. If only it didn’t take so long to move around in that mode; it can take forever to get fixed on a target.

This really brings us into the control scheme. I suppose that some people find this setup intuitive, but where I’m from, this is borderline nuts. This game was originally designed for a PC with a keyboard, and while this version supports the keyboard, I don’t have one, and the insane amount of button combinations kept me constantly pausing the game to look up something in the manual. There’s no fun in that. It’s a major distraction from the game.

Like I said, having a ton of options to play with can be fun, but when they are this complicated, the learning curve is far too high. With missions that simply aren’t that rewarding, there isn’t a lot of replay value, and I became board with fighting through these missions that the game CD and myself almost got into our own little war...

Extras:: You can always go back and play through missions again sometime, but unless you’re just in love with this type of game (hey, Rainbow Six fans might dig it), one play through this one is about all you’re going to want. There is some nice mission variety (at least in the environments), but the play mechanics tend to get stale fast. There’s no two player or cooperative modes, so forget having a friend join in the fun. Alas, stick to Rainbow Six, or maybe even a more action oriented war game.

Overall:: Hidden and Dangerous tries to do too much. It tries to overstep it’s boundaries in so many areas that the game is just barely holding itself together. While mission structures are cool, the graphics are lacking in about every area, and the missions can be confusing and nerve grating. If options are your bag, and you can handle the wacky control setup and button combinations (that or you can work well with the Dreamcast keyboard), you might be able to enjoy those options. However, for those who don’t want to read a book before playing the game, stick with something a little less tedious. Hidden and Dangerous has some good ideas behind it, but the execution isn’t up to the standards that they should be. Yes, this game can be dangerous after all...especially if you want to keep your mental health.