Developer: Innerloop
Publisher: Eidos
With "Project: I'm Going In," developer Innerloop vaults itself into the crowded shooter realm hot off their most recent flight simulation, Joint Strike Fighter. Since Joint Strike Fighter was all about shooting and offering up brilliant graphics, it isn't such a big step for them. More like a fall to Earth really, and luckily for us, for the most part, they land on their feet.
Enter Dave Jones, a tough-as-nails former operative for the British SAS sent to track down a rogue nuclear device that seems to have fallen into the hands of nefarious terrorists. Dave is a clichéd and rather dull character, or at least he would be if it weren't for the wonderful voice acting performance attached to him. The story is also clichéd and dull, or at least it would be were it not for the action and style Innerloop brings to the table.
IGI is yet another attempt to merge the realism of the Rainbow Six series of games and a typical 3D shooters, much like NOLF, Deus Ex and Hitman before it. That's why you have painstakingly realistic weapons coupled with a health bar and the ability to heal instantly by using a giant hypodermic needle. It gives you the option to be stealthy or to bring the whole base down with your weapons, sometimes as you see fit. It also means you can't save during a mission, which contributes heavily to this title's downfall.
These missions are hard and long. If a game features missions that are either hard or long, it needs a freeform save game system. Or at least a compromise like Daikatana's save gems or Soldier of Fortune's limited save system. It's no fun to sneak painstakingly through a living, breathing compound filled with bad guys, and then get killed by an unseen sniper and have to do it all again, for the fifth time. Yes, it's more immersive. It makes you scared and that's thrilling, but anger and frustration take over fairly quickly, and that ruins the sense of immersion the developers were striving for.