Contract J.A.C.K. – PC – Review

As the
world’s busiest professional killer, John Jack is being told "Eliminate our
enemies, or we’ll eliminate you."  Well, the game doesn’t spell it out as simply
as that but you get the point.  Jack will be forced to dole out some 12 gauge
anger on his prey, but trust me when I say, you won’t find anything new or
exciting here.  Please read on.

Contract J.A.C.K. (CJ) is the incredibly inferior prequel to the No One Lives
Forever games, in those games, the storyline was arguably slick, the gameplay
was varied and the game was as addictive as it was fun.  Gone are the stealth
weapons like the piano wire, sleeping gas, gone is the clever voice-overs done
by Cate Archer, quite simply gone is the clever fun that this series is famous
for. 

For a
contract killer, Jack is incredibly bullish, not that the game allows you to
even try and be stealthy.  As you play, cloned bad guys come at you wave after
wave after wave after…  you get the point.  And for each one of these bad
guys, you will plug with countless amounts of ammunition to the point that you
will wonder where the devil all the ammo is.  For you see, each bad guy you
dispatch has ammo on him, but the number of bullets constantly varies
usually each fallen man has but a handful of ammunition.  The A.I. is itself
rather poor as the bad guys will always seem to have a leg or head standing out
which is easy enough, sure they will throw a grenade at you occasionally or
implement some sort of offense, but most of the time you can merely turn the
corner and mow down a hallway filled with them with relative ease, especially
during the early parts of the game.

The
levels themselves are incredibly forced to the point where you feel as if you
are being led around by your nose.  Often I would go back to see if I missed
anything like a hallway or a room that might have contained some additional
equipment and more often then not I found myself pretty
disappointed.  Additionally, I just couldn’t help but feel that the look of the
levels was too basic, boxes are everywhere as are waist high bars or fences,
nothing terribly surprising in terms of interactivity, which is just plain sad
since this is the same company that made the killer DOS title "Blood".

You
would think from the box that there would be a myriad of weapons, and the fact
that our hero is a contract killer but CJ just doesn’t deliver the goods.  The
Tommy gun, the AK-47, the explosive tipped arrows on the crossbow, nary an
original weapon in the bunch.  And the hype surrounding the "Bacalov Corrector"
hand cannons that is so prominently displayed on the box isn’t even available
until the end of the game.  It’s just another disappointment in a long list of
disappointments.

Now I
really can’t complain too much regarding the actual graphics because it doesn’t
look terrible.  The wall textures and lighting effects are all fine, as are the
colors and once you get the gamma set correctly you will see little details that
are nice.  But the characters themselves are rather pathetic, the seemingly
endless supply of black and tan suited bad guys is nearly uncountable. 

I can’t
recommend this game for purchase, even at $39.99 which seems to be the going
price.  If you have to play it, then at least wait a couple of months.  This
game is undoubtedly headed for the bargain bin.  Drab enemies and weapons,
average graphics but below average levels make this a "prequel" that does not do
the series justice.

Gameplay: 6.0

It’s a
first person shooter that plays like every other first person shooter.  What
makes this no fun is the constant gunning of monotonous bad guys, the inability
to actually use some sort of finesse and the lack of exploration while in the
forced levels, ouch!

Graphics: 7.0

Clean lines and an interesting space station level, but for the most part we’re
talking about a game that has average backgrounds surrounded by not so
interesting looking people.

Sound: 7.1

The
music is certainly upbeat, to a fault.  The guns sound good as does the voice
acting.  The audio is probably the games most redeeming quality.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 6.2

What
should have been a nifty idea is shallowly executed with flawed A.I. no sort of
clever gadget or gameplay and the missing voice over work that was done
oh-so-well in No One Lives Forever.

Multiplayer: 6.2

Level
builder my fanny, there is nothing particularly engaging or fascinating playing
this game online since there aren’t that many people playing.  At least not when
I tried playing it up.

Overall: 6.3

I think
that Monolith knows they made an inferior product, with so many high profile
first person shooters out currently AND coming down the pipe, CJ is merely an
example of a good group of game makers going through the motions.  I miss the
quirkiness of the Blood titles, the gaming fun of SHOGO and the clever gameplay
of NOLF.  Where did my favorite sleeper company go?