- Players: 1
- Platforms: PS2
- Release Date: February 28th, 2006
- Developer: Real Time Productions
- Publisher: 2K Games
- Rating: Play It
I’ve never been a fan of remastering games, oftentimes because the efforts are usually low, the results are less than stellar, and the game being remastered usually doesn’t benefit all that much. Some games seem to receive multiple remasters, such as Uncharted and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (the latter of which was not only remastered but also remade from the ground up). Other games that could actually benefit from a fresh coat of visual paint and some improved modern day tweaks to the controls and handling are all too bereft of such benevolence, such as 2K Games and Real Time Productions 2006 outing of 24: The Game for the PS2, which is a prime candidate for such endeavors.
Nevertheless, what you get with the sixth gen third-person shooter is nothing to scoff at, and any fan of the long-running Fox Network television series that took place in real-time over the course of 24 episodes will absolutely adore what the development team was able to achieve here. The game, unlike the show, does not actually take place over the course of 24 real hours, but instead has its 24 in-game hours condensed down to about six real life hours of gameplay.
Story: Righteous
Anyone who is a fan of the 24 television series which starred Kiefer Sutherland as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer, will absolutely love the story here. It gets a little ridiculous at times, but the way it plays out, the way it’s acted, and the way it all ties together is classic 24. There are twists, turns, multiple villains, backstabbing, double-crosses, and all sorts of clandestine plots to overthrow powers, take control of deadly weapons, and wreak havoc on the general public.
I do have to agree with some other users who noted that the initial terrorist plot was actually the most compelling story element here. There were a couple of other threads that branch out two-thirds of the way through the game, but they’re far less compelling and far less as realistic as the initial threat.
Even still, the wild goose chase and cat-and-mouse antics that lead CTU agents all over Los Angeles helps keep viewers (and players) on the edge of their seat the entire way through.
A large part of what really helps tie all of the game’s story elements together is the writing, which is top-notch stuff for a video game. The reason for this is because some of the staff who actually worked on the television show lent their talents to the game’s production, including the show’s writer, Duppy Demetrius, who handled the bulk of the game’s writing. This makes the game feel like a literal extension of the television show, and nothing that happens in the game seems too far out of the ordinary of what took place in the show.
Sound/Music: Top Notch
Just like the story feels like grade-A efforts from the production staff, the sound and music design is also equally as robust. This is thanks to the game mimicking the television show’s audio cues, theme song, and action beats. This even includes that tension-inducing thumping clock sound every time a second passes in the world of 24. That dreadful pulsing always seems to indicate something foreboding is just around the corner… and usually there is.
Again, just like the show, Kiefer Sutherland narrates every hour on the hour. The game starts at 6:00am and runs all the way through to 6:00am the next day. On each hour you can hear Sutherland calmly explain “The following takes place between…” and he rattles off the hour.
Usually voice acting is passing feature that I don’t care about, but here it really helps bring everything to life. Bad voice acting can quickly abase the overall experience, but here it actually elevates it. Kiefer gives 110% as Jack Bauer, as even in game format he still seems to exude the kind of intensity and dedication to the character that he did while the show aired on Fox.
Sutherland’s efforts are buffered by other series’ regulars, including Carlos Bernard, Elisha Cuthbert, Reiko Aylesworth, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and Paul Schulze.
What really surprised me was how 2K really went all in to ensure the voice-acting was not a declivious factor in the overall presentation. For instance, they had Christian Kane (from CW’s Angel and Leverage) as the main villain, and he’s not in there as a throwaway either. He’s supported by other veteran actors Thomas Kretschmann from Immortal and Dragged Across Concrete, as well as Lost’s Daniel Dae Kim, James Badge Dale, Andreas Katsulas, and even Tom Sizemore.
Dennis Haysbert also reprises his role as the conscientious President of the United States, David Palmer. However, his appearance and role in the game is thanklessly brief and it’s easy to forget that he’s even part of the 24 mythos going by the game alone. I’m not entirely sure why he was included other than for a passing reference to his assassination attempt at the very end of Day 2 in the television series.
Graphics: Dated But Authentic
In talking about how all of the main stars lend their voices to the game, there is another thing that must be commended here by Real Time Productions: the likenesses of the actors and actresses.
A lot of times licensed based games go the route of having the actors voice the characters but then the characters don’t look anything like the actors. Call of Duty is notorious for having well-known actors in leading vocal roles of main characters but then they change up their appearances so that you can’t recognize them. Oftentimes if you don’t identify the actor’s voice you would never know it was them. At least in a few cases, like in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, they did utilize the likeness of actors such as Troy Baker and Kevin Spacey.
Here, every voice actor is modeled after their real-life appearance, which helps compensate for the game’s very dated visual effects.
The models are fairly low-poly, but are products of their age. On the upside the game does look better in some regards than some of its contemporary relatives such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or the True Crime games. I think The Godfather still has better models from that era compared to 24: The Game, which is quite a feat for an open-world title, but the effort is commendable nonetheless.
In the case of this PS2 exclusive, the heads and mouth movements are passable enough, and the fast-paced directing and break-neck speed editing all helps mask the game’s very dated visuals. The combination of sharp dialogue and a television-style appearance with the multiple split-screens all help lure the player (and any loitering viewers watching the game) into focusing on the story and characters rather than the blocky character models and their sometimes sub-par animations.
The door-kicking animations are especially shoddy, while the rolling animation to dodge enemy attacks leaves a lot to be desired, especially compared to other games that were out at the time such as Max Payne 1 and 2, both of which featured much better dodging and rolling animations.
In some ways you can see how the licensed game curse looms over the production given the shortcuts used in some areas to help bolster the appeal in others.
This is where the nomination for being remastered comes into the discussion, because with updated visuals from Unreal Engine 5 or Unity 5, and better animations, this game could look like an actual extension of the television show.
Unfortunately, the game’s dated visuals will keep gamers very well aware of the game’s age, and its place in gaming history. If you don’t mind the blocky vehicles, the lack of dynamic lights, and the stilted animations (which were all common during that era of PS2, Xbox and GameCube games) then 24: The Game won’t bother you too much.
Controls: Frustrating But Operable
Many of you know that animations, physics and controls all kind of go hand in hand. If the animations are tied to the input, and certain inputs are restricted based on character movement, then it can really fumble how well characters behave and control. In this case, due to the animations being curtailed for most actions, you won’t find yourself struggling to pull off moves and fighting against input lag the way you will in games like WCW Mayhem or Legends of Wrestling.
For the most part the characters handle well enough, but the camera can be a real nuisance to deal with, mostly because if you keep it on automatic it will snap back every time you move the right stick in any position. The snapping makes it tough to see around the environment and it can really ruin your mojo when it comes time to aim at enemies who are directly above or directly below you.
On the upside you can switch to a manual camera position and swivel it as you see fit, but that can be equally as frustrating as it swings around in ways you may not intend and you still have to fiddle and fumble with trying to get the camera looking in the direction or at the angle you want.
The game is mostly best played as you just kind of run through, quickly tapping the left-bumper to lock onto enemies and rapidly tapping the right-bumper to shoot and take down foes. In this way, the game reminds me a lot of 007: Everything or Nothing, which had a very similar kind of lock-on and shooting mechanic.
Trying to manually aim is nothing short of an exercise in frustration, and it’s best left to just using the auto-lock on feature and trying to nail headshots when possible.
The controls are equally finicky with the vehicles – and yes, there are various segments where you have to drive around Los Angeles. The vehicle physics aren’t quite as refined as The Godfather, and are closer to GTA: Vice City. For those of you who remember how Vice City played, you’ll know that it didn’t quite handle as well as you would have liked, but you could at least complete objectives (for the most part).
The vehicle controls is also an area where EA really showed their expertise in maximizing the studios under their wing. With 007: Everything or Nothing and The Godfather, the vehicle physics were some of the best because they had the team who worked on Need For Speed to do the vehicle mechanics. So they felt crisp, responsive, and appropriately weighty.
Here, the vehicles have that old-school mid-aught feel where they have jerky motions and floaty handling. Again, you can get to and from your destination as intended, but don’t expect to pull off any fancy maneuvers or out-drive AI enemies with James Bond-esque race-driving skills. The driving in 24: The Game are purely perfunctory. That being said, altogether, the game does work as intended.
Gameplay: Passable
The actual gameplay consists mostly of third-person shooting, with the aforementioned driving segments sprinkled throughout.
The developers managed to mix up the gameplay by including some stealth segments, not too dissimilar to Metal Gear Solid, where you have to sneak around facilities, stealthily take out guards and avoid tripping alarms (or allowing enemy AI to flip the alarm switch). The good part here is that even if an enemy does spot you, the mission doesn’t end. You can still complete the objective even with a bunch of enemies honing in on your position and trying to shoot you to death.
The game also gives you a bit of breadth when it comes to taking down foes. You can use a wide variety of different weapons, including pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, and a couple of different shotguns. There are even some sniper segments, as well.
The writers also wisely made sure to make the gameplay segments for the different characters relevant to those characters. Yes, you get to play a handful of different characters, not just Jack Bauer.
In some segments you will play as Michelle or Kim, and their segments are very different from when playing as Jack, Tony, or Chase.
Majority of the time you’ll be playing as Jack, running and gunning down enemies like James Bond. Tony’s missions are actually quite unique, as he’ll have investigative type missions, exploration missions, and some run-and-gun segments. Chase has a little bit of everything, from stealth missions, to sabotage missions, to driving segments, to all-out action shootouts.
All of the characters will occasionally have to do some puzzle-solving, which makes up a small but difficult portion of the game.
You may have to hack doors, security systems, or locate bombs across a variety of different mini-games.
The mini-games aren’t typically challenging, and usually are tossed in to mix-up the gameplay from the monotony of gunning down a lot of mostly braindead AI enemies.
And yes, the AI is sadly a big detractor here. They just stand around and shoot at you from a fixed position after running to cover.
They don’t provide much in the way of being a challenge and are mostly just there to frustrate you and provide an obstacle in the way of getting to your objective. I can understand that they just needed AI there as fodder, because most of the time you’re just progressing through levels to get to a destination, and so the game doesn’t really need any kind of unique AI routines, just something basic enough to give players a challenge. In that regard, the AI does its job, much like the very basic and braindead AI from the sixth generation GTA games.
Don’t expect Half-Life-style AI here, or for enemies to utilize strategic tactics like in F.E.A.R or GTA IV. Of course, most of the nameless bad guys in the 24 television show were cannon fodder for Jack Bauer and his CTU tactical team to dispose of, so I guess the game got that much right after all. However, the AI-teammates can be a bit bothersome when attempting to get them to follow you to a destination. They’re prone to get stuck and will require you to go back and fetch them if you get too far ahead.
I do think they should have fixed the melee a bit, though. The initial attack worked well for knocking enemies down, but it was extremely difficult trying to kick the bad guys while they were down. You had to be in a pitch-perfect position and it just made it really difficult to execute.
However, I did like that you could use the right trigger to announce your intention and even shoot the weapons out of the hands of bad guys. Directing your reticule over an enemy while holding down R2 prompted the option to have enemies surrender, which I think was a nice touch. If you were good enough you could arrest the bad guys without actually killing them, a rare option in most games.
Stage Design: Well Above Par
One other thing I think needs to be highlighted here is that some of the stage designs are impeccably well done. The one stage that stood out the most to me was the subway stage, where Tony and a CTU special tactics team went in to stop some terrorists – it looked like and was designed like a living, breathing subway. The fact that there were civilians running around made it feel a lot more dynamic and thrilling.
Even with the less-than-pristine shooting mechanics, the level felt fresh and exciting. In fact, the game regularly had various scenarios and environments that were actually better designed than they had any right to be; the drug house that Jack has to infiltrate is another one that stood out. It reminded me of the drug-filled apartment complexes that Max Payne found himself trouncing through.
Not all of the stages are top notch, though. Some of the ending levels are an exercise in tedium, with enemies placed in peculiar spots to force players to throw the controller at the wall. However, more often than not the levels are designed quite well, like the yacht – which, once again reminded me of the opening yacht level from 007 James Bond: Blood Diamond and the yacht level from Max Payne 3. It features some good in and out pathways that afford for some fast and furious gunplay.
Overall: Worth Playing
If you still have an old PS2 or you have a PC that can run a PS2 emulator, 24: The Game is well worth playing, especially compared to a lot of today’s dreck. In fact, I can’t think of the last time we had a third-person espionage thriller that featured awesome chase sequences, interactive interrogations, driving around in a semi-open world environment, some deep-state terrorism, a variety of puzzles, and multiple characters to play that were all competent and cool (for the most part).
I doubt we’ll ever get to play a hero like Jack Bauer again in an AA or AAA-quality game, and so even with all its faults, I still think 24: The Game is worth playing. As far as replay value is concerned, there is only one story outcome, but you can go back and complete the levels for higher ratings, which unlock bonus features such as interviews with the cast, character models, and some behind-the-scenes goodies. Despite being a licensed game and having some faults here and there, it definitely holds up as one of the better third-person shooters for the PS2.
The production design, unrivaled editing work, and the way the story unfolds with dedicated acting from the cast also makes 24: The Game worth playing for those reasons alone.