Project: Snowblind is probably one of the most disappointing first person shooters I’ve ever played.
In this game, you are 2nd Lieutenant Nathan Frost, a member of the Liberty Coalition Army. Shortly after arriving at a base in China, you are attacked by the rogue Chinese general, Yan Lo, who has apparently seized Hong Kong. This attack serves as an introductory / training level and it ends with you trying to save a comrade from a missile being dropped. Unfortunately, you are caught in the explosion and… well you’re not left all that pretty by it. You are volunteered by your superiors to be the first of a new breed of soldier, a super-soldier empowered by bio-augmentations that make you a literal one-man army. Of course, with this new surge of power means you’re going to be doing all of the Coalition’s dirty work that needs doing, including stopping the power mad general from his schemes that endanger not just China, but the entire world.
Now it bears pointing out that the graphics and audio of this game are mostly entirely average. The entire appearance of everything is just about as on par for a Playstation 2 first person shooter as it gets, from explosions to the simple enemies that you will encounter. The audio is fairly run of the mill as well, although it is definitely of note that most of the voice acting is actually fairly impressive and enjoyable to listen to, especially the drill sergeant sounding Chung, who is a more cyborg looking soldier. To anyone familiar with Deus Ex, you will be aware as to how important the enemies’ footsteps are and hearing his or her movements can be. Well P: SB kind of drops the ball on this one, mostly forcing you to rely on the radar and visuals when you’re not taking the two fisted guns of death approach.
The really important part of any first person shooter is the actual game play and it is here where Project: Snowblind really infuriated me. The guns, grenades and accessory items all work as advertised, however many of them are incredibly useless. The mine launcher is almost entirely useless and the ammo for the sniper rifle is so limited that you basically cant use it anywhere near as often as you should. Also, as a sad note for shotgun fans, you will find that using the shotgun is a near death sentence. You must charge an opponent to get close enough for it to even hurt them and when you’re that close, you might as well use the punch, which is actually a one-shot kill for most enemies. Sadly, the pistol gets my vote as best weapon due to its silencer, one shot kills with head shots and its secondary fire shoots the whole clip at an enemy as an explosive, which is usually an instant kill. The only really good weapons are the ones you get so late in the game that they are almost a bittersweet blessing at that point. Mostly, I used the pistol, the carbine when I had to, the flechette gun and the H.E.R.F electricity gun.
The bio-mods in this game are one of the major stars of this game. You will be given the ability to cloak like the Predator, put up ballistic shielding to become invincible for a short time and a vision mode where you can see enemies by heat as well as seeing them through walls. These abilities are not necessary at any point, but they are an interesting addition and can make many areas of the game exponentially easier and less frustrating than they might otherwise be. However, EMP attacks will strip you of the energy that you need to use these and they will run you out of energy quickly just by using them so it’s a necessity that you use them sparingly.
The enemy A.I. is somewhat to be lauded however. They are intelligent and actually somewhat cunning; they will seek cover before actually shooting at you, be reluctant to just rush through a door on the off chance you’re hiding behind it and will toss grenades when you hide for too long, trying to flush you out. However, it was possible to trick them and this was actually somewhat fun. Shooting at an enemy was often enough to goad them into coming after you, letting you pop out and either punch them to death or actually use the shotgun on them. They will also spread out so that grenades aren’t quite as effective as you would like, forcing you to think quickly at almost all times.
However, this fun is mitigated by a few notable problems. Firstly, the game is only a good nine or ten hours long, a paltry amount even for a first person shooter. I suppose they hoped that the multi-player online would add to the replay value of the game, but this only applies so long as there were ever servers up to play it on. Even when the game was new lag was horrible, servers were usually limited to two at a time and it wasn’t exactly the most entertaining time. Secondly, when enemies die, they will continue to show up as an enemy to your targeting reticule. This will cause you to waste a fair amount more ammo than you need to on each enemy. Finally, you can’t actually rely on walls for cover all the time. Sometimes, seemingly at random, enemy bullets will pass through the corners of walls you are hiding behind, leading to you getting pummeled when you should be safe. This is cheap and something that should have been caught by the game developers.
This game could have, no… it should have been good. But by not handling some minor problems and not supporting their online enough for the super short single player mode to be forgiven, this game is barely worth the rental fee’s much less the bargain bin price you will find it for. Honestly, I expected much more from the guys that at one time brought me Deus Ex, but then again, this is Eidos. We can see the harm they brought to the Tomb Raider series with each successive sequel, so I suppose I should have expected this.
Score: 6