Abysmal visuals, tepid gunplay and awful AI make Secret Service a crippled mission from the start.

User Rating: 2 | Secret Service PS2
By deactivated-5d8fbc2356478 | Review Date:
It was literally around an hour into Secret Service that the unfortunate thing that happened. The unfortunate thing that happens to games that get so much wrong, but not exactly wrong. Amazingly badly wrong. Take Activision's latest first-person shooter, for example. Set during an attack on the White House, you play an agent for the Secret Service to protect the president. It sounds fun, but it as opposite as that as you can think. Secret Service is probably the worst shooter I've ever played. Oh, and that unfortunate thing? I wasted my money on it.

I won't waste your time or anybody else's for that matter, so I'll make this review as plain as possible. Secret Service's story isn't exactly existent. It just threads together a briefing before each mission and sets you out to thwart the enemy attack on the United States. This is fine, but the game runs so badly it's unbelievable. Firstly, I played the game on the PlayStation 2, so a degrade in visuals is both understandable and expected. Thing is, this apparent degrade is incredibly awful. The framerate is choppy from the get-go, the textures are amazingly bad, the backgrounds are horrendous and each level lacks any distinct colour or art design. It's so bad it makes the PlayStation 2 look a fool, and that's of course unfair, because after seeing what the console is capable of with such games as God of War, Shadow of the Colossus and Area 51, Secret Service is almost embarassing.

The gameplay is just as dreadful. Controls are sluggish, with excruciating aiming and precise movement. Sprinting often results in clipping through objects and weapon recoil is bad. The game is incredibly short and repetitive, so the torture won't last long. Enemy AI is terrible and the constant spawning is tedious and frustrating. Level objectives are tiresome and no fun to complete.

The sound effects also lack punch and the dialogue is repetitive, with bad sound cues and terrible voice acting.

The PlayStation 2 version has no multiplayer, so there is definitely no reason to replay, which the aforementioned points will aptly discourage anyway.

SUMMARY

Presentation 3.0 - Boring menus, lacklustre cut-scenes.

Graphics 1.0 - Even by PS2 standards, this game looks abysmal.

Audio 2.0 - Poor sound effects and music.

Gameplay 2.0 - Awful AI, poor level design and terrible shooting mechanics.

Replayability 2.0 - Don't play this game.

Overall - 2/10

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