I'm Going In Preview

In the last couple of years, the first-person shooter genre has broadened to include games that shun visceral action in favor of gameplay that stresses the importance of realism and planning ahead. Represented by titles like Rainbow Six, SWAT 3D, and Spec Ops, these games have gone beyond falling into specific niches, and they are currently enjoying mainstream success. However, a lot of critics claim that these realistic shooters have sacrificed fun, forcing you to spend more time staring at an interface menu than playing the actual game. Enter I'm Going In. Currently in development at Innerloop Studios in Norway, I'm Going In is a first-person shooter that borrows gameplay elements from both sides of the genre's fence: fast-paced action from the likes of Half-Life as well as the realism found in games like Rogue Spear.

I'm Going In was first publicly unveiled at last year's ECTS in London. The game has since undergone significant improvements and has progressed from a simple demo to a playable, albeit early, feature-complete game. GameSpot was recently given the latest build of I'm Going In, which contains two complete single-player missions. While the cinematics haven't been incorporated into I'm Going In, it appears as though the game's plot revolves around an ex-KGB female colonel who went crazy after the fall of the Soviet Union and has since been pirating Russian arms and selling them to international terrorists. The colonel goes too far, however, when her men break into an active silo and steal a live nuclear weapon. NATO calls upon one of its top special operatives, known only as "Jones," to stop the colonel and return the nuclear weapon safely. As Jones, you'll go through 20 missions across Eastern European terrain in search of the colonel and her nuke in a gameplay style reminiscent of Konami's Metal Gear Solid, even though the game is played entirely in the first-person perspective.

I'm Going In unfolds gradually, introducing you to new characters - both allies and enemies. You will interact mostly with Anya, your contact at headquarters, who'll brief you before every mission and give you constant updates while you're in the field. Additional characters will make their entrances later in the game, all of whom will have their voices provided by voice actors in the coming months.

Gameplay

Missions range from spying and reconnaissance to assassination and sabotage, and Jones always begins them with barely any weapons. You'll have to procure most of the weapons and items in each mission by killing enemy soldiers, and as such, most of the arsenal in I'm Going In is based on weaponry from the Warsaw Pact. Although Innerloop has finalized only 12 of the weapons in the game, we know that at least eight more are scheduled to be included in I'm Going In. Currently the list includes Soviet weapons like the Kalashnikov AK-47 and Dragunov, Spas 12, T80 .556, Uzi, H&K MP5SD, Browning M2HB, M16A2, Pancor "Jackhammer" auto shotgun, Glock 17, Desert Eagle, Colt Anaconda, as well as several high-powered arms like the LAW 18, proximity mines, and frag grenades.

The gameplay is a balanced mix of action and the stealth style of play pioneered by Thief a few years ago. In one of the missions we played, Jones was called in to rescue a captured officer who had been imprisoned in a Soviet air base. Jones starts off with only a Glock 17, a silenced MP5 - both of which are equipped with an anemic amount of ammunition - and a combat knife. In fact, the weapon you'll end up using the most throughout that particular level is an AK-47, which you'll pick up off a dead soldier, and the only way to acquire ammunition for it is to kill additional enemies. This will present you with a classic dilemma: You need to waste ammo to get more ammo. Of course, you can always circumvent the ammunition problem by simply avoiding detection by the guards. This is easier said than done, as typical Soviet air bases are crawling with soldiers and are outfitted with security cameras. Most soldiers will typically stay cooped up in their barracks unless an alarm is sounded, and since cameras can quickly be disabled if they are shot at, the only guards you'll encounter along the way are those already on patrol. Security cameras will almost always spot you before you're able to spot them, however, so you shouldn't let your guard down. I'm Going In doesn't give you a clear indication of a camera's range and line of sight through radar the way games like Metal Gear Solid do.

Final Thoughts

Each of the game's missions will have a single overarching goal that needs to be accomplished before you can move on, but your objectives will almost always change midmission. For example, in the mission with the captured officer, you're instructed to rescue him from the holding cell at the other end of the Soviet air base. After making your way past guards and cameras and ducking past buzzing Hind helicopters, you'll reach the jail only to find out that the officer has been moved. At that point, you're instructed to break into the control tower and grab the flight logs in hopes of finding where the terrorists have moved him. Along the way, however, your objectives change once again. Blocking the way into the airfield and control tower is an APC with a heavy machine gun on its turret. If you're spotted, the armored personnel carrier and its gun will make quick work of you, so Anya will tell you to trick the tank by heading to the base's radio tower and ordering the tank on a patrol. The trick works, and you'll eventually make your way across the tarmac, past a pair of SU-27 fighters and a parked Hind, to the control tower. The game's other missions are all made up of this similar multiple-goal formula, and they will include objectives that require you to assassinate, spy, sabotage, and perform numerous other cloak-and-dagger actions.

The levels themselves are mostly outdoors, and appear spacious and large. While Jones moves along at a fast pace, crossing a typical level from one end to the other will be a time-consuming endeavor. To design these sprawling environments, the developers at Innerloop used existing technology from Joint Strike Fighter, the company's combat flight simulator released in 1997. But the translation from a flight sim to a first-person shooter is an easy one for this engine. The game uses height maps to accurately model outdoor terrain, and the high number of polygons on each of the objects, ranging from structures to vehicles, gives each level a detailed look and feel.

Eidos is hoping to release I'm Going In in October 2000, about one year after the game was first unveiled to the public. As it stands now, I'm Going In can run only in Glide - in fact, the game is enhanced for play only on the Voodoo5 5500, and it runs significantly slower on lesser 3dfx video cards, even on Pentium III-equipped systems. But Innerloop will optimize the game for all 3dfx boards and add a Direct3D mode before I'm Going In ships. We'll give you updated coverage of the game as we receive new builds from Eidos in the coming months.