The Sum of All Fears Preview
International conspirators and ruthless terrorists are nothing new in a Red Storm game, but The Sum of All Fears is the first of the developer's tactical shooters to be released in conjunction with a major motion picture.
Anyone with a modicum of PC gaming experience knows that games based on movies have, for the most part, been major disappointments--even when the films that inspired them are quite good. But while there's no way of knowing whether or not The Sum of All Fears (starring Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman) will be this summer's action blockbuster, rest assured that UbiSoft's latest tactical shooter will do much more than simply ride the coattails of its celluloid cousin.
Though both movie and game are based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, Paramount Pictures made a few changes based on casting and marketing decisions. In the novel, Jack Ryan is already CIA director, and the bad guys are of Arab descent; in the film, Ryan is simply an analyst at "The Company" (to more accurately reflect the age of star Affleck), and the culprits are neo-Nazis.
You begin the game as the leader of an FBI hostage rescue team (HRT). Though The Sum of All Fears (SOAF for short) uses the Ghost Recon engine, the opening missions will immediately conjure images of Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear. On your first outing, you must infiltrate a TV station that's been seized by a militia group called the Mountain Men to broadcast its doctrine (naturally the staff is being held hostage), and then it's off to the group's compound to rescue two fellow FBI agents who were captured when they attempted to serve arrest warrants for members of the group.
But it turns out these are merely dress rehearsals for a much larger drama. After terrorists detonate a nuclear bomb at the Super Bowl in Baltimore (in the novel, the game took place in Denver), your HRT is attached to the CIA and sent to a warehouse in Israel to find evidence corroborating suspicions of the weapon's origins. From there, SOAF sends you on a globetrotting expedition as the list of suspects is constantly narrowed. In Lebanon, you must demolish a weapons factory and a prison used as terrorist headquarters, and then it's off to the Transvaal in South Africa to assault a training facility, disrupt an arms deal, and save diamond miners being held hostage. Eventually, the trail leads to the world of high finance, and your final sorties take place in elegant mansions, high-tech corporate headquarters, and a time-worn Australian castle.
As previously noted, SOAF was created with the Ghost Recon engine, but it differs in a variety of ways. Unlike in Ghost Recon, the bulk of each mission here is spent in exquisitely detailed and utterly convincing indoor environments (check out the computer monitors found in many of the missions). While Ghost Recon put you in charge of up to six soldiers divided into three squads, SOAF gives you direct control over only two immediate teammates--the behavior of other squads is scripted, and you have little or no say about their fate. Some players might find this slightly frustrating as they hear casualty reports streaming in from other teams, but on the other hand, the challenge of coordinating your group's actions with the other teams maneuvers can be hugely rewarding.
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- Ubisoft
- Red Storm Ent.
- Modern Tactical Shooter
- Release: May 30, 2002
- ESRB: Teen
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