You play Jack Carver who is on a boat with a girl Val. Coming nearer to an island, Val leaves you heading for the beach. And all of a sudden you get attacked. Stranded you make your way across the mercenaries infested island. You find a smartphone that lets you talk to Doyle. This guy directed through the whole landscape and helps you free Val. You uncover the plot that some mad man used mutagens to create mercenaries with superhuman powers. However, the experiment went awry and the monsters start to attack the mercs. Your job is … well … to “peace” the island.
Island, mad monsters from genetic experiments on humans, the maiden in distress and you as some sort of Rambo. I think this sums it up.
Back in 2004, when this game has been released the graphics must have been awesome! You can see miles and miles ahead. This is really nice. The weapons you get feel strong and do have some severe impact. And the AI of the enemies is astonishing!
… but the game uses checkpoint mechanics for savegame. I played at a medium difficulty level and some parts of the game are right out easy and some are frustrating! I think I made the pursuit with Val driving in the Jeep by mere luck. And while I’m at it: you can drive vehicles too, yes. But the handling of these vehicles just sucks. When you switch into 3rd person’s view to get more of the surroundings you simply cannot steer the vehicle any longer.
You can crouch and crawl, giving you more variants of cover. However, kneeling makes a twig an impossible obstacle to overcome and crawling makes a pebble into the Himalayas.
Sometimes this made me mad grinding my teeth.
Yet, the enemy AI and the graphics are really great. 6/10.