CIA Operative: Solo Missions

CIA Operative: Solo Missions, a game made by the notorious ValuSoft which produces low-priced games, which usually can be seen back in the quality of the games. Some examples of games that actually were sub-par Battle for Troy, 18 Wheels Of Steel and Vietnam: Black Ops.

I’ll say it right of the bat, the game is way behind any other game released in the same year(2001), a year in which games like Halo(Xbox), Grand Turismo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 3. First thing you’ll notice is the graphics. Every object in this game looks like it has been made in under 5 minutes in a 3d graphics program, many object have corners in them while they were intentioned to be round, for example tables. And the textures they slapped over them are of poor quality aswell, they all consist of low-quality images, sometimes they’re even stretched on some surfaces making the quality even worse. And besides all that, there’s also a complaint when adjusting the resolution, since the game doesn’t render things in a higher resolution but rather just stretches out the entire image of the game, leaving you to see big pixels. The levels itself are also poorly designed, you’ll walk through many empty halls and if you look up to the sky you can even see the lines, which make you aware that you’re playing in a box on which they plastered a sky onto. The enemies also only have 2 death animations, 1 for a headshot and 1 for a bodyshot.

There’s isn’t a real storyline to the game, it consists of various missions, often not much different than the standard eliminate a target, leave innocent people alone/out of harm and kill anyone who resists. Okay, you get about one page of text before each mission explaining why the target has to be eliminated but seeing as there isn’t really one storyline, it’s a waste of time reading them. You’ll go to various areas in the world, but seeing as the levels are small and can be completed within 5 minutes, this doesn’t say really much.

The gameplay in this game is also horrible, the hit-detection is awful it only registers about 2/3 of the shots you hit on the enemy, not that it really is that much of a deal considering the AI is pretty much non-existant, they just stand where they were dropped at the beginning of the mission and shoot when they see you, except of course for the characters that got a scripted patrol, not even trying to find some cover or deploy some tactics, neither will they go looking if they should’ve heard shot, the only times when they do this, is when it’s scripted. The game also just gives you 3 guns to work with, a sniper, a pistol and a machine gun, that’s all, no guns you get later in the game, nope those are the ones you get. When you’re playing the game you’ll find yourself using the sniper rifle most of the time, considering it kills in 1 shot and it’s the most accurate, it doesn’t really matter when you use it, since the enemies don’t really pose a threat. The machinegun is horrid to play with, because the bullets spray everywhere, even if you point the gun in the enemy’s stomach, you’ll have to stand 2-3 feet away, to get at least a few decent shots. The pistol sprays a bit less, but is still pretty bad, and considering it has a slow firerate you better pick the sniper rifle(with which you'll eventually run out of ammunition).

One of the game’s biggest faults is that it’s way too easy, like the aforementioned bad AI. But besides that, bullets hurt the player little, if they even manage to hit you, because their aiming is as bad as yours and they seem to be standard equipped with a machinegun, except for the 2-3 snipers in towers or on rooftops, but most of the time they don’t even see you, and they’re pretty much just target practice.

The sound in this game is pretty standard, the gunsounds are pretty much like any other game. And you get spoken to in nationality-insulting stereotypical voices. You also only have 1 song playing in each level, no matter if you’re unnoticed or in a firefight.

The only positive thing about this game is that the artwork in the menus and loading screens is pretty good, but that can’t save the game. Those 10 drawings tops, can’t make up for such an abomination of a game.

I’ll conclude my review with saying that this game is not worth the money, in fact it’s not worth any money and I would suggest that the gamefanatic should steer away from ValuSoft games, well maybe except for some games like Battle For Troy or Vietnam: Black Ops(not that those games are terrific, they just suck less than this game.). CIA Operative: Solo Missions is a waste of money and time.