Somewhere chatting a guy -- ONE guy -- up is enough to break out of prison. Somewhere is in Th3 Plan.
The first thing you see are bugs. Lots of bugs. No matter what the settings are set to, parts of the levels will disappear, the camera will get stuck, the characters will get trapped in walls. Also, I've had a really nasty bug that stopped all sound from playing during the game sometimes coming back for the cutscenes.
But maybe, it's a good thing that there sometimes was no sound. That way, I didn't have to listen to how bad it was. I mean, I've seen worse, but in 2006... c'mon a game has to do better than that. I mean, honestly, I've seen games in 1995 with better sound. Also, the voice acting is dull and simply dead. The characters have no emotion whatsoever.
The graphics are pathetic. There is no denying that. It takes a special effort to make a museum and a train look exactly the same, but the game succeeds. Speaking of the train, that one level takes up half the game, and I'm not sure anyone wants to spend an entire game shimmying on the side of the train while your partner goes under you in the train car distracting the guards.
This leads me to the gameplay. The gameplay (apart from the story) is the weakest part of the game. In virtually every level, there are three active characters. The screen is split into three parts: the big part is the controlled character, while the two other characters can be given orders to stay or follow. The characters can be switched at any time.
If this sounds fun, trust me, it isn't. It's a good concept, but it isn't carried out particularly well. Besides, your partners' AI is so idiotic, you're generally better off manually switching players and completing the actions separately. And by the way, the AI's IQ is somewhere around 15. To distract a person, you walk up to him and start a conversation. (You look bored. -- Excuse me? -- I couldn't help but notice you look kind of bored. -- Well, not bored, maybe a little tired.) And so on, for about forty-five seconds. You are so interesting, that the person turns toward you, meanwhile another character can walk right behind him. In real life you could -- maybe -- do it to one person, but EVERY person?
The controls are a little uncomfortable, the characters seem to walk where they want. There are four inventory/action buttons, and you'd do well to memorize them from the beginning because all the action relies on these four buttons. Then, there are minigames, like the pocket-picking, or lock-picking. They carry a feeling of Splinter Cell (namely Double Agent), but if Sam Fisher minigames pump your adrenaline, these minigames are so dumb, they are more likely to make you laugh.
And then there are some questions unanswered by the story. For example, if you just stole the security codes, WHY THE HELL DOESN'T ANYONE BOTHER TO CHANGE THEM? Or, why is no one worried that you just stole a handful of diamonds? Or why is no-one alerted by the fact that two of the characters busted another one out of prison? Although, I suppose the last question was answered by the fact that there are virtually no security cameras in the prison.
So, where Ocean's Eleven has style, this bunch of lackluster junk has bugs. Where Ocean's Eleven has a great plot, this has a plot... hole. Just take my word for it, if the idea behind this seems interesting, its execution is horrible. And if you think I'm being overly critical, well, that's what I thought about the other reviews and comments when I picked up a copy of the game.