I was pleasantly surprised at how good Project: Snowblind turned out to be. It shows what you can do with the shooter premise if you have just the right amount of imagination and talented programmers to realize that vision. The future is a great place to explore since it doesn’t have to follow any rules of any kind. It’s a blank slate for the imagination to go wild, yet at the same time it comes with a built in template that can be tweaked at will. Project: Snowblind chooses to embellish the template of present society and explore the unstable relationships of countries with advanced technical capabilities that are used for evil. Nathan Frost is the protagonist of the story. He’s a highly trained solider skilled in the art of future combat which see him battling bots and other technologies with an assortment of weapons, gadgets and advanced thinking. It’s a combination of having all these controls on hand and doing some rapid on-the-spot puzzle solving that really makes the game appeal to me. There’s not much for a story but that’s no excuse to throw in a bunch of unrelated elements just to make the gameplay more varied like some games do. Snowblind manages to maintain the essence of the campaign throughout the game. Everything is related to the story as well as the look and feel of the gameplay. I won’t directly compare it to Splinter Cell but it lives in the same neighborhood. There action is relentless but it’s also broken up with puzzle solving, exploring, stealth and the use of gadgets. Stealth only plays a minor role here and it’s not from lack of trying. The guards in this game are some of the smartest I’ve ever encountered. They’re not just heavy in numbers or hard to kill, it’s the fact that they will hunt you down wherever you may be hiding that’s unnerving. It tough to pull something over on these baddies so that’s why you have to always be ready to shoot to kill. It doesn’t matter how smart they are if you can outgun them. You’ll have turrets on your back that will help keep you cover automatically and well as regular weapons you can control and aim as you run. Some missions are solo and some will involve a team. You can’t control any other characters but they do provide a realistic portrayal of what you might expect from such a squad as they take matters into their own hands to combat the threats. Enemies range from humans to plodding mechs to various human-controlled vehicles such as trucks and choppers loaded with firepower. The environments are fully interactive. You can take cover behind some obstacles but they won’t be there for long when the missiles start flying. Gadgets come in the form of power-ups which give you various abilities such as an electric shield and a form of bullet time which puts everything in the game in slow motion except you. These can get you out of tight situations but they have to be used sparingly. With some strategy, skill and a little bit of luck you should be able to shoot your way out of most situations. I was also impressed with the crispness of the graphics and how smooth the framerate was maintained with a screen-full of enemies while displaying such detailed environments. The levels are varied and interesting; each one more fascinating than the next. The lighting effects, particle effects and sound effects are spectacular and even rival that of the Xbox version. Up to 16 players can go online but I have to admit that while the single player mode is great, the online mode is average. It seems as though it was added as an obligatory feature. Project: Snowblind is a great shooter. It will keep you on the edge of your seat. Highly recommended for either a rental or purchase on either the Xbox or PS2. Both versions run great on their respective hardware and as mentioned, the PS2 version does an admirable job and holds its own against the Xbox. |