Project: Snowblind - Review

Added March 28th, 2005 by Dakota Grabowski

Introduction:

Eidos as of late hasn’t exactly been attributed to developing quality titles. Recently they have only released the abysmal Backyard Wrestling series and a racing game primarily focused on destruction with Crash 'n' Burn. In the height of Eidos’ success, they have released some well known titles such as the plethora of Tomb Raider games; the widely beloved Hitman series; the originator in stealth, Thief; and of course, the whole Blood Omen and Soul Reaver collaborations. One series that doesn’t receive the amount of recognition that it should have is Deus Ex. Deus Ex came from the brilliant mind of Warren Spector (once of the heralded Ion Storm developer) and it made its debut on the PC. The reason I bring up Deus Ex is that Project Snowblind at one time was going to be a Deus Ex sequel. Due to the change of development direction, it became its own entity inspired by what Ion Storm and Spector created. Would Project: Snowblind resemble enough of what Deus Ex brought to the video gaming world while also separating itself far enough away to be known for its own merits? Well, Crystal Dynamics has provided a well paced shooter that Eidos should be proud of.

Crystal Dynamics is the studio behind the Blood Omen and Soul Reaver series. With their creations of Raziel and Kain (both from the two series that intertwine together), Crystal Dynamics will always have its place set in video game history. Not only is Kain one of the best villains ever created, but he’s a villain that became an anti-hero that many call their favorite vampire in any video game. Besides their two series, Crystal Dynamics has had other titles released for the Xbox. The exclusive launch title of Mad Dash Racing was decent. It had colorful creatures racing on their feet and fighting to the finish line. The other title Crystal Dynamics has created for the Xbox would be the multi-platform title of Whiplash. Whiplash may not be revolutionary but offered a unique experience with having control of a weasel that was attached to a rabbit. The unique part included being able to use the rabbit as a weapon and bash the enemies to death. As fun as it sounds, it did have its drawbacks such as becoming quite repetitive. Now Crystal Dynamics has returned with Project: Snowblind and inserts itself in the FPS genre competing up against the likes of Unreal Championship 2 and Halo 2.

Gameplay:

Project: Snowblind takes the players into a not so distant future in Hong Kong. You are the Liberty Coalition Army 2nd Lieutenant Nathan Frost. The first level serves somewhat as your tutorial with menus but I will dwell into that in a just second. The first level actually is the backdrop of the story which throws Nathan Frost into an experiment after he suffered injuries from a blast from a bomb. The experiment involves Frost being transformed into a prototype for the bio-augmented super-soldiers. So with the little information I have provided so far, you can see that you are going to be in for a hell of a ride being Nathan Frost.

Now onto the plot and what it basically revolves around. It resembles what Nazis would be in the future. This is quite unfortunate as I too, like so many, am worn out on the World War 2 setting. So I thought Project Snowblind would be my escape from WW2, but it draws so many similar aspects. It’s chilling to see that maybe the future will involve more national socialists that want to rid the world of the ill-fortuned people. By the middle of the story, you might just have to sit back and laugh about it because one of the scientist you recover in the story talks about how the adversaries (The Republic in this case) want to rid the world of people who wear glasses and who might have asthma. Quite silly in my opinion and the General (whose ideals closely resemble Adolf Hitler's) isn’t much of an opponent if you ask me. So to simply put it, the story isn’t impressive enough that it had me waiting for the next bend around the corner. Midway through you’ll notice the lack of story as Snowblind pits you in the same levels you played through at the start as your headquarters was raided and everyone inside was killed.

The tutorials pop up while you’re playing to brief you on a new weapon or power. The tutorials serve to also show you which button to press to use that new power. The tutorials are hard to read at certain moments with the black background to the menu that pops up. There are several guns included in the game and all of them have their purpose, but only a few will you have any use for. Each gun has a primary fire and a secondary fire, so you’ll have to experiment to see which one best suits you. The mine launcher I never used as it is given to you in the middle of the game and there are no tanks to use it on anyways towards the end of the game. The pistol is one of your starting weapons but it will be quickly forgotten as the carbine is the only weapon you’ll ever really need. The kicker is a kinetic/static energy gun that pushes and pulls objects for your own disposal. This too I found had no use and had no particular pluses to it. The weapons I did grow fond of include: the sniper (which is horribly designed I think); the carbine; flachette rifle; the HERF gun and the shotgun. Those five alone could have made the game thoroughly enjoyable, but Crystal Dynamics packed so many guns into the game that with the short single player, not all of them are required. One gun I must mention that is overpowered to the extreme is the Rail Laser. It kills with one shot and it is usable within the multiplayer, but I’ll cover that in just a few. If you are a weapons freak and love your FPS with weapons, you’ll find that Project Snowblind will spoil you for sure. I am not even including the plethora of gadgets like riot walls, EMP grenades, frag grenades, flash bangs and so much more that it may be a little overwhelming.

With Nathan Frost being bio-augmented, he comes with several powers that he can use to gain an advantage over the opposition. Ballistic Shielding, Invisibility Cloaking, Reflex Boost, Infrared Vision, and Electrical Storm are the selected powers that Nathan gains throughout his journey to defeat the Republic. Reflex Boost is your usual “Matrix slow effect” which allows Nathan to slow down time and gain the upper hand on the enemies. I never used Reflex Boost outside the first few levels. Infrared Vision is packaged in to give you a more stealth approach, but once again, I didn’t find this tremendously useful to use in every mission. The ones you will be using all the time would be the shielding, invisibility and the complementary electrical powers. The Ballistic Shielding provides you with a temporary amount of time of invincibility to take care of business when outnumbered. I often used this ability to get myself out of a difficult situation I put myself in. The Invisibility Cloaking is also another great ability as I went into my “Sam Fisher” mode and killed the enemies from behind without them gaining notice of my whereabouts. You can’t shoot though while in this invisible state so punching the enemies is the route you’ll be taking. The last power you acquire is the Electrical Storm which you gain after defeating the General and use for a few levels. Nathan is able to shoot an Electrical Storm which seeks out enemies and quickly dismantles them. The powers are a great addition and certainly fun to use while playing.

Graphics:

Project: Snowblind isn’t quite up to par with current releases such as TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, Halo 2 and even Riddick from last year, but it does try to include bits and pieces of a great looking game. The environments within Snowblind stand out above the rest of the graphics as each level seems to have its own distinct feel. Each is modeled with their own attributes with great detail. The sci-fi theme is captured excellently, but the same couldn’t be said about the character models. The characters feel bland and nonexistent. I only grew attached to one being another prototype sergeant that helped Nathan throughout a few missions. The enemies have no differential details to them and all look identical. Only a few have an unique look to them and they aren’t met until the sewer level where you infiltrate the General’s headquarters. Comparing to outings in other first- person shooters, Snowblind isn’t that impressive when it comes to graphics.

Audio:

The audio is disappointing in the essence that the voice acting isn’t up to speed like the other high caliber action titles have been. They lack that special ‘oomph’ that would have had them stand out and have players remember what was said in any of the scenes. Fortunately though, for Crystal Dynamics, they packaged in some good in game music that rounds out the audio well enough to hold the fort down. The in game music will keep you interested in playing and wanting to advance to the next level to see the upcoming effects of what just happened in the last mission. Now for gun effects and how they sound, they all sound realistically enough like they should have been. Only problem I found was that Rail Laser didn’t have the sound effect like I thought it would. The sound resembled more of a stealth based gun than a powerful laser. If I had to put a label on the audio, it would be “Project: Snowdeaf” rather than Snowblind. You could possibly not hear any music and voices at all, and still be satisfied with the game as the audio isn’t the deciding factor if Snowblind is a quality game or not.

Controls:

Project: Snowblind is similar to many FPS on the Xbox in that it controls almost the same way. What Snowblind offers differently than most others is that the control scheme is altered just a bit to have its own flavor added in. Comparing to Halo 2 controls, the difference is that throwing grenades feels tons better and has a substantial effect in Snowblind. Throwing grenades is executed with the black button and you can have it manually timed with pressing the black button when you want it to blow up or letting it destruct by itself. The use of manually triggering it allows players to have another method of attack, instead of a last second attempt to save your life like most people do in Halo 2 with chucking grenades. The other separated part of the control scheme is that each gun has two firing options with primary and secondary fire. The Left Trigger is used for the Secondary fire and comes in handy when your primary fire isn’t working out like you thought it would. The rest of the controls you will find similarities in Halo 2 with using both control sticks to move and aim.

Replay:

Some may be thinking I saved the best for last in the replay section with Xbox Live, but you are oddly mistaken in this case. Xbox Live doesn’t dominate Project: Snowblind like I thought it would. Xbox Live is the aspect that stands out in Snowblind, but it wouldn’t be all that without the gameplay features that make this attracting on its own right. The Xbox Live multiplayer is class based and some may find that a little frustrating with the lack of balancing online. Grunts, Heavy, Scouts, Snipers, Agents, and Berserkers are included for individual classes. Grunts come with a carbine and a mine launcher while also packing in the augmentation of ballistic shielding. At first you may find this class the weakest, but in fact it’s one of the best as the mine launcher is quite powerful on smaller levels when you can detonate the mine in front of a huge group of opponents (if you didn’t catch on, its overpowered to say the least). The Heavy might be the most attracting with the Rocket Launcher, Pistol and Ballistic Shielding, but it tends to be among the weakest, as you will be killed before you even fire off that rocket you may have aimed at the enemy’s feet. The Scout is packed with a Shotgun, Mine Launcher and Reflex Boost and is a great class when guarding bases for those that are defense oriented. The Sniper is what you expected it to be with a Sniper, HERF Gun and Invisible Cloaking tagged along with the class. Sniping is quite difficult in Snowblind, so I only recommend it to those who are quite talented with the gun and have experience from other FPS games like Halo 2. The Berserker has a Flachette, HERF Gun, and Electrical Storm and is another close range attacker but is more for the offense oriented. The last class is the most overpowered class and should be toned down to the point that nobody would want to use the class anymore, except for the players that are great. The Agent comes with the Rail Laser, Pistol and Infrared Vision. That may sound like it’s actually underpowered, but figuring in that the Rail Laser is the most powerful gun in the game with one shot kills, the majority of players online are using this class and abusing its powers.

Now about what’s available for match types, there’s enough here to keep one occupied away from Halo 2 or whatever they were currently playing. The typical Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch is found online and the inclusion of vehicles couldn’t be sweeter for those who just like to frag each other. For those who like more of the methodical game types; Capture the Flag, Tactical Assault, and Quick Demolition is available for those who want to think while they play. Capture the Flag is the same type of game type found in so many other FPSs. In Tactical Assault you must defend your team’s generator while also destroying the opposition’s generator. First one to destroy the other’s generator wins. Quick Demolition is Crystal Dynamic’s bomb mode where you must place the bomb in the enemy’s base. The last mode is called Hunter and it’s more of a special deathmatch type. You fight to become the Hunter which is cloaked and have the opportunity to build up your kill count while being cloaked. Only one player is the Hunter so you must kill the Hunter to become it. As you can see, online has a lot going for it, but with so many balancing issues, Snowblind is still stuck in the water currently waiting until more updates arrive.

Summary:

Project: Snowblind may have too much competition in the FPS field to stand above the rest. The story is weak but it’s easily overlooked when playing a game that plays this great. The Xbox Live factor doesn’t hold up for too long due to issues among balancing. I found myself not attracted to the Xbox Live since I have been so spoiled with Halo 2 and Rainbow Six in the past. With the short single player experience, you will be looking to the multiplayer online and off. Online, like I discussed, isn’t too impressive and the offline is missing key components such as split-screen. With split-screen being omitted from Project Snowblind, Xbox Live is the only thing holding this together besides the stellar gameplay and weapons.