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Project JDJ: Jones, David Jones

Your character, by the way, is David Jones. He's kind of a poor man's Sam Fisher who wears his commando outfit everywhere he goes. However, his English accent doesn't make him sound nearly as tough as Splinter Cell's Fisher, who has the benefit of Michael Ironside's voice. Jones trades lame one-liners with his bosses, who are so stingy that when they want him to blow up a bridge, they make him sneak into an enemy base to get the explosives and then ambush a bunch of guards to get the fuses and detonation timers.

We three dweebs

Because berets are funny

Moon over Tripoli

Jones' mission director is Anya, a spunky blonde who seems to have borrowed her sorority girl coif and tight belly shirt from Unreal 2's mission director. Anya unfurls for Jones a storyline about some sort of nanochips that have something to do with a mad Chinese general. Truth be told, I wasn't really paying attention because I was busy replaying the levels a hundred times. As the story progresses, you get to play a few timed missions, two instances of having everything but your knife taken away, three annoying escort missions, rail sequences where you shoot mounted guns, a pre-scripted capture, a few fail states that immediately end the mission if you're detected, and a couple of one-shot kills from guards with rocket launchers. The whole thing ends with one of the dopiest monster closets I've ever seen. You know monster closets from Doom, right? A secret door opens and a dozen bad guys come running out from some tiny 10-foot by 10-foot space where they've been closed in with nothing to do but wait for you to trigger the door so they can jump out at you.

Project INB: It’s No Battlefield 1942

IGI 2's potential saving grace is the multiplayer game, which offers five maps cobbled together from elements of the single player game. The hard-to-find v1.1 patch adds a sixth map made from unique assets. There is only one type of multiplayer game, which is built around a sequence of objectives with progressive spawn points. For instance, on the map based on the rocket launching pad, the attacking team has to pump fuel into the rocket, and then detach the gantry at the top of the tower, before finally getting into a control room bunker to actually launch it. As the team accomplishes each objective, they can choose from additional spawn points closer to the next set of objectives. Players are awarded more money with which to buy better guns based on kills and objectives accomplished. Although the size of the maps allows a lot of maneuvering, the objectives, which are clearly marked on a small radar map in the HUD, keep players from getting lost. The multiple spawn points, however, keep the action fluid.

Climb like an Egyptian

Check the oil in that truck

Live via satellite

This is Innerloop's first attempt at multiplayer support, which might explain why there's a sixteen player limit on these TRIBES-sized maps that would have fared better with thirty people running around. Unfortunately, IGI 2's multiplayer games have none of the personality of Battlefield 1942, none of the variety of Black Hawk Down, and none of the razor-sharp realistic fidelity of Raven Shield. It's ultimately a middling feature. The number of players on the servers reflect this; it's only a few week's after the game's release and active servers are already hard to find.