Developed by: UbiSoft | Published by: UbiSoft | Played: 1/31/03

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Well-composed graphics, and all the most advanced graphics techniques used. Real-time cloth interaction, real-time lighting, smooth natural animations, well-textured objects. The real-time lighting is very effectively used in that it makes the evironment look very textured, and provides spots for you to hide.

Well-tuned controls. The look around control is well-tuned, the walking controls are well-tuned. The controls give you a nice array of different options to use for stealth (climbing on pipes, split jumps, crouching, against the wall, more). There is a lot of different tools at your disposal to use while you are making your way though the levels.

Nice atmosphereic soundtrack that perfectly sets the mood for techo-spy stealth.

The levels are built with a variety of different options that you can use to accomplish your goal: climbing on pipes, using shadows to hide, picking locks, hiding behind walls, split hanging above people... The levels aren't monotanous in design; as you play through them you do a variety of different things, move in different directions, hide in shadows, create shadows to hide in, all kinds of different things you can do to approach each situation.

Checkpoint saving, the way to go. Much better than manually saving. It's more natural.

Plenty of role-playing elements in the game. Investigating the conspiracy, stopping it, saving the prisoners, etc.

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Long, tedious tutorial at the beginning. The controls should be explained in an intuitive way as you begin the storyline, not in a tutorial training level unrelated to the story.

The game mechanics lack a certain addictive, natural rhythm and free-flow. Without the wow factor from the graphics, this game wouldn't be all that great.

Going through levels is a linear sequence of steps that you have to do almost perfectly, and it's sometimes seemingly by random luck that you pull it off. No open-ended elements, no room to recover from a mistake. The game has the nasty pattern of dying, reloading, trying again, dying, reloading...

Too much emphasis on stealth. Not enough variety of gameplay styles.

The graphics, despite being advanced, still often look blocky and very silicon-like.

Too much text reading.