Not sure I would have liked it that much even when it DID come out.
I'll start with the good. The Graphics are lovely, even years after it came out. The sound effects are great. I actually have to strain to look through the brush/forest to pick out my targets and when they get near, I can listen for footsteps to pick out where they will emerge to find me. It also has its creepy moments as you tread lightly through blood spattered corridors The story is pretty campy/actiony with AI mercenaries grunting idiotic lines to one another as your main hero John carver carves a path through the islands. It seems hes out to stop an evil scientist despite not really signing up for the job to do so. The path you take to each objective can be tricky as you don't have a conventional map. Instead you have an objective "compass" that points you in the direction you should go. It can be fun blazing your own path to your goal in the jungle but it can also be frustrating when you basically palm your way around a mountain that happens to be in your way.
Now for the bad. The AI...is ridiculous. What may have been great back in its day is just playing stupid now. As soon as you make so much as a peep or poke your head out of a bush for just a second, they will swoop down on you like hawks. Well, with their bullets at least. It doesn't seem to matter where the enemy is in this game, if they see you (even from across the meadow up a mountain in a tower with a cloud passing over them) they WILL hit you. I couldn't help but laugh when I died because a ROCKET launcher from JUST outside my sight range SNIPED me with a rocket. You will often run frantically wondering how the hell things are hitting you which can be rather frustrating.
Assuming you make it alive the boring part sets in. The AI will march one by one attempting to find you in the bush, which turns into a game of whack-a-merc as you methodically thwack one to two at a time. Its fun at first, but when you realize that the only real way to progress is to do this EVERY time you see an enemy in the jungle, it becomes a chore. Ah, but why fight them at all? Why not stealth? You could do this, but God forbid ONE person sees you because then you get to play whack-a-merc and you have no choice. Ah, but why not save constantly to continue trying the stealth approach? Nope, you have to use the checkpoints the game logs as you play. Too bad if you have a lousy healthbar/armor at the checkpoint. You either deal with it, or load a previous checkpoint and try not to let it get low before the next.
Overall, its an OK game. I'm sure when it came out, that it was worthy of the praise, but between frustrating AI zeroing in with pinpoint bullet accuracy and brain dead hunting as well as slow whack-a-merc moments, I feel like I have effectively missed the boat on this game.
No matter, I hope you enjoy the game more than I did should you decide to revisit the past with this one. Have fun reloading checkpoints a gazillion times. Oh yes, and enjoy the bloody ridiculous difficulty spike at the end.