Do you enjoy pressing the A button" Is It you favorite button on the controller" Do you wish games had more A button pushing" Well then, Rogue Ops is your game. A button enthusiasts will be happy to know that you can do virtually anything in Rogue Ops simply by pressing the A button. In fact, you nearly do everything by pressing the A button. No need to worry about learning any pesky button combinations or developing any skills; the A button does it all! The training level in Rogue Ops is super. Basically, all you do is run from place to place and press the A button. This is something of a revolution and it fills my heart with hope that one day us back button lovers will get our game. (Do you realize the X-box is the only system that even has a back button?)
The A button pressing extravaganza begins with the introduction of Nikki Connors, Agent of Phoenix. Nikki is one tough gal, just ask her and she’ll tell you. In the opening sequence we watch her fire four bullets at a paper human target. We see one headshot and the camera pans down to reveal the other three shots; all to the poor, paper man’s groin area. When her husband and daughter are murdered (kinda like a female Punisher) she finds out that her husband was really a secret agent for Phoenix. Coincidentally, Nikki is a former military operative. She decides to join Phoenix herself and exact her revenge against Omega 19 (the bad guy equivalent of Phoenix and people responsible for her family’s murder). You get the feeling that there is also something a little shady going on with Phoenix. During your training mission you are required to kill another agent. It must be hard to keep numbers up if you have to kill an agent every time you train one. Every one in Rogue Ops is tough as nails and they all have their own agenda. Never has walking up to objects until an icon appeared and then pressing the A button been so intense.
Everything in this game is functional. It all works pretty well, although there are a few places where I knew exactly what I had to do, but wasted time trying to stand in the exact position and look in the exact spot so that the action icon would appear. The biggest problem with this game is that it has no style. Even worse is where the game tries so hard to have style. It reminds me of the recent Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life movie. They spend so much time showing you how cool Lara Croft is that instead she comes off as lame. Take the way that Nikki walks.
Instead of slinking through the level like a cat on the prowl, she prances through like a Baywatch babe. Instead of accentuating her stealth, her walk accentuates her ass. You don’t see the stars of Metal Gear Solid or Splinter Cell bouncing through a level do you" Since I brought up those two games lets just get on with it: Rogue Ops is a poor man’s Splinter Cell or Metal Gear. You know that this game was born of some brainstorm session where some guy said, “Hey, I got it! What about, now brace yourselves, Splinter Cell with tits!” Then the entirely male think tank erupted into applause and retired to the local pub for the evening.
Because of the poor way the game is put together, there are places where you will be lost. I got lost for minutes in the darn training session. All because I was standing too close to the ledge I was jumping towards. How does that make any sense" She can’t jump to a ledge unless she is far enough away to make it physically impossible" Then instead of fixing it in the cut scene, they have her jump from the original spot, glitch out in mid air and suddenly arrive hanging on the ledge. It is like this on nearly every jump in the game. It is truly painful to watch.
I will get off all that for a moment and talk about what this game did right. First off, this game has tons of gadgets and guns. The first level you are given a couple of pistols and shurikens (throwing stars). The pistols are cool but the shurikens are a lot more fun. There is nothing quite like sneaking up on a guard and tossing one into his neck. The neat thing is you can go pick them back up after you throw them. Listing all the weapons would be tedious but needless to say there are a plethora of pistols, rifles, machine guns, and even a taser.
The rest of the gear that Nikki uses throughout the game include a retinal scanner (capable of doing long distance scans), super goggles (that give you night-vision, heat-vision, and just plain see-cool-stuff-vision), a spy camera (looks like a little bug that you control), and a stimulant that speeds Nikki up (or slows the environment down from our perspective). At least they didn’t skimp out on the gadgets. Another thing, exclusive to the X-box version, you can choose your weapon or gizmo using voice command, via the X-box headset. This is cool little addition, but ultimately it adds little to the experience.
Oddly enough, in a game where everything is over simplified to the point of merely pushing the A button (except shooting), this game has a bit of innovation in the sneak attack department. You still have to sneak up to an enemy until an icon appears and then press A but instead of performing the attack the player must participate by pulling off a combination on the directional stick (up, down, left, right, and so on). While you sneak up there is a small bar above the icon. As you get closer the bar fills. The more the bar is filled (the closer you are) the less complicated your combo will be. You have a limited amount of time to pull off the combo, so this is pretty important. It is a pretty solid way of rewarding increased stealth and quite different from the games that Rogue Ops was cloned from. After completing the combo, it cuts to Nikki’s attack in a fairly well rendered little fight scene.
The story in Rogue Ops is clich� and uninspiring and its few twists are obvious. The characters are weak and of the type that speak in mostly one liners. They are all way too cocky and way too cool and come off hokey. In the training level the instructor arrogantly tells you that all you have to do is reach the exit. But the exit, mwah ha ha, is blocked by a steel door. Oh the sneaky devil. It will take all your skills to run up to the ladder, press A, run to a pipe, press A, and crawl through a corridor.
If you must, rent Rogue Ops. It’s really too cool for me. I think I will just wait for the next Splinter Cell.