Best Of

Project: Snowblind is a first person shooter game set in the near (ish? not really far, but not near, either) future. The game was published by the same guys who did Deus Ex, and revolves around a guy who got a bunch of cybernetic augmentations to save his life... so, I mean, you'd expect this to be some pretty good shit, right? Unfortunately, you know how it goes: not the same devs, not the same game. But you might be forgiven for giving it a chance: *Look! Robots and shit! Yes!*
Sadly, even sweet flying robots could not save this travesty. This came out around the time Call of Duty 2 came out, so we were full-on in the swing of linear first person shooters with dull, caricatured foils for characters. I guess Crystal Dynamics wanted to capitalize on this scene. P:S, then, is a linear FPS. Nothing more, nothing less. There's really little to say about it... but I'll try. Storyline is thin, AI belongs in an on-rails shooter, animation is cheap and crummy (even for a 2005 title), characters are IMMENSELY caricatured, and the setting is unbelievable (my favorite part is how you're up against what is basically the chinese... but they got what seems like 100% white midwestern american voice actors). P:S's saving grace COULD have been the toys - bionic augmentations and silly weapons - unfortunately, they're all half-baked and poorly thought out. They gave you INVINCIBILITY and INVISIBILITY and BULLET TIME and SEE THROUGH WALLS, plus, like, one other tacked-on instakill augmentation. Real original, guys. And the gadgets? They're really just guns. SO MANY GUNS. The main character carries like fourteen guns at once, and to switch it either takes you A) years to scroll through them all in combat, or B) out of the action while you peruse your inventory. P:S's other saving grace could have been a simply enjoyable game - I like Call of Duty 2, for instance, although it was a super linear game with many of the same problems - but it isn't. Combat AI is garbage, level design is uninspired, and you're overpowered even WITHOUT invincibility/invisibility/whatever other bullshit. I stuck it out to the bitter end. The bitter, bitter end, when this soldier who was dying on the battlefield and only survived because he was pumped full of life-saving bionic enhancements literally TURNED THOSE ENHANCEMENTS OFF BY TOUCHING HIS NECK SO THEY WOULDN'T GET BROKEN IN AN EMP BLAST. A little more. Just for good measure, let's do some graphics comparisons. *One of Project: Snowblind's easily forgettable characters. I think the main character is excited to see him, then he dies five minutes later and you never hear about him ever again.*
*One of Call of Duty 2's random soldiers, courtesy of ixbt.com. These games were released the same year.*
Nope, Nothing to see here. All done.


OH. OH MAN WAIT. I ALMOST FORGOT. THIS THING: You know what this is? IT'S HALF LIFE 2'S GRAVITY GUN. They jammed it into the game on, like, the first level, and promptly never spoke of it again or gave you a reason to use it... almost as though it was an afterthought. Half-life 2 came out in November 2004. This was popped in like, February 2005. Is that enough time to rip something off? Skip it. Skip it a million times. Project:Snowblind wasn't even worth your trouble to read this review.