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Project FMP: Forgot My Power Cord

Your laptop also gives you a limited number of saves for each mission, supposedly limited by battery power. This is a marked improvement over the original IGI, which didn't give you any saves during a level. Like the original game, IGI 2 takes place on some huge maps ranging across wide swaths of outdoor terrain. Both games have been built from the engine Innerloop created for Joint Strike Fighter (also known as -- no joke -- JSF), a flight sim that looked pretty sharp in its day even if it was short on gameplay. But whereas these sorts of outdoor environments were rare when the first Project IGI came out, they're hardly unique these days. Operation Flashpoint is probably the best example and Black Hawk Down is the most recent example. As was demonstrated in Unreal 2, even the Unreal engine can do this now.

Lobby fight

Let me check my email

You may have already won!

After working with it for so long (JSF is six years old), you'd think Innerloop would have worked more of the kinks out of their technology. Although it sometimes looks pretty sharp, there are still some problems. There's no easy way to distinguish between steep hills and death cliffs. There's still a weird breathing effect to the terrain as you move around. Water looks more like some glassy, milky substance instead of water, as if you were on a planet with rivers of mercury. Shadows are blocky effects with weird angles that occasionally punch through solid objects or float in odd places. Smoke trails behind rockets look like solid black worms.

There are scads of collision detection problems ranging from guns sticking through closed doors to multiple guards standing in the same place at the same time. The character animation system is stiff and awkward, particularly when you shoot someone or when the camera pulls back to show you climbing a ladder like some funky spider monkey. Moving while crouched or crawling feels more like driving a small slow RC car as you glide along behind a low-rider POV.

Project ZLT: Zip Line Tycoon

There are nevertheless impressive aspects of the technology. For instance, when you shoot some surfaces or objects, there are separate damage decals for entrance and exit bullet holes. The Libyan town and villa look good. Some of the snowy mountains of Russia have a nice ambience. The rocket pad at the end of the game, which is also one of the better multiplayer maps, is a great setting for a grand battle. Considering the scale, it's thrilling to ride a zip line from one end of the map to the other. There are a couple of scripted moments when helicopters arrive and a bunch of enemies disembark and fan out find you. Some of the level designs have a nice realistic feel; there are convincingly placed barracks for the guards and even bathrooms, with none of the gratuitous caches of weapons and ammo that you get in most action games. And the size of some of the levels really is impressive.

Caution: zig zagging guards

Yes, this man is levitating

There's my ride

But while you'd think an emphasis on stealth set in these large outdoor environments would afford a lot of freedom, IGI 2 isn't built to give you many choices. Almost all the single player levels have mandatory choke points, often requiring combat instead of stealth and often built around something inconsistent. For instance, chain link fences are curious impenetrable obstacles used to force you through certain areas. However, in one prison break level, there’s a conveniently cut opening. Another level opens with a cut scene in which your character handily scaled a chain link fence to infiltrate a dockyard. Hey, no fair! That ability certainly would have come in handy earlier.

Most of the missions play out like a to-do list of contrived tasks. Let's see, I have to download the security codes, turn off the generator that powers the radar, realign the satellite dish, get a loaf of bread at Safeway, pick up the kids after soccer practice, and then meet the helicopter at the evac point. These rarely feel like anything other than a way to force you to visit locations on the map. At one point, you have to hijack a helicopter from an airport to escape. But first, you have to pump gas into the fuel tanks and then load ammunition into the guns. David Jones, airfield gas station attendant, crew chief, super spy.