There's so many problems with this game that even Jack Bauer can't solve this.
Anybody who plays video games as constantly as I do should know the cardinal rule of video games based off licensed properties: 90% of them suck. Horribly. Yes, there are sole exceptions, but they appear to exist only during the 8-bit and 16-bit era of video gaming. I had watched reviews from other sites and they had said this game was about average. So I knew what I was coming in with 24: The Game, and had low expectations the moment I popped the game into my PlayStation 2. Since 24 the show tends to have variety in how the show works, naturally SCE Cambridge decided to keep that one aspect of the show. 24: The Game keeps all the aspects of the TV show intact: The split screen camera angles, the varied situations at the same time, the ticking clock, but wrapped it around in an uninteresting game.
24: The Game takes place between the second and third seasons of the television show, and was written by a writer of the program. Since 24 is known to be plot-heavy and have lots of sub-plots and the like, I'll just summarize it the best I can: You play as various members of the Counter Terrorist Unit, solving the mystery of a threat between the vice president, then later a bomb threat to level Los Angeles, and finally the typical revenge plot between Sutherland's character Jack Bauer and a primary villain of the game. There are occasional plots that introduce some characters that would appear in later seasons like Chase Edmunds and Chloe O'Brian, but most of these are brief and are only mentioned occasionally, or in most circumstances, only once and never again.
There are four primary types of levels in 24: The Game. Those are shooting missions, driving missions, stealth missions and button-pressing mini games. Most of these missions take up about 10-20 minutes, and there's anywhere from 1-4 missions per "hour". However, there's no sense of feeling the "real time" aspect like the TV show brings. For instance, there are 1-2 missions where you must chase or drive to a certain area. Most of these won't take long, but according to the game, it took you 30 minutes to chase down an enemy car when it actually took about five minutes or less.
Shooting is the bread-and-butter of 24: The Game, and it's done poorly. The best way to describe it is a lock-on fest. If you hold down the L1 button, you'll have a crosshair on screen or you'll be locked-on to an enemy, and you shoot weapons with R1. While in this lock-on mode, you can position where you want your shots to go by moving the right analog stick until the cross is at the position you want. Switching between enemies is done by flicking the right analog stick, but it's a bit tough to do when you're under fire, and sometimes pounding on L1 is actually faster. There's variants of this shooting level where you use a sniper rifle and shoot targets. It's about the same as the above, but apparently your sniper rifle has one shot and is reloaded almost instantaneously, which is a bit unrealistic.
You'll also be able to take cover in designated spots by pressing the X button, but this was made before other cover-based games like Gears of War or Rainbow Six: Vegas, so the cover system is very simplistic. You can easily get behind cover, but you cannot shimmy side-to-side while behind cover, you have to get out of cover and then get back into cover at the new position, leaving you open to enemy fire.
In these missions, you can also announce that you're a federal agent of CTU to enemies, but this is worthless 90% of the time. But when it does work, you can restrain surrendered enemies and save hostages by announcing your status. Where there's missions where you have another NPC to work with you, you can tell them to stay behind cover or to follow them, but most of the time this is worthless as they'll usually have a weapon and be able to fend for themselves.
Driving missions are the other main game type. Most of the driving missions are the simple "get to objective on map", and you'll be driving on a relatively accurate portion of Los Angeles, even down to the highways. The main problem with these missions is that you'll be driving cars that for some reason like to pretend they're being driven on ice-covered roadways in the middle of winter. This can make it hard to make precise turns without hitting a wall, or a car, or scaring a pedestrian in the process. In 1-2 of the driving missions, you have other vehicle choices, but even then these cars might be oversensitive and veer out by even the slightest nudge of the analog stick. Worst off, most of these missions will involve either chasing an enemy car or being chased by heavily aggressive AI. After playing other games with smooth driving like Grand Theft Auto, I expect driving in games like these to be pretty simple and not reliant on abusing the poor handling to get through missions without throwing your controller in frustration.
Next, we got stealth missions, and like the others, this one's broken too. Thankfully this game does not go by the standards of "If you're spotted or if an alarm goes off, it's mission failure" like in many other games, but it's still problematic. In these type of missions, you are given a choice to use a stun gun to knock out enemies, and you're gonna need it to get through them sometimes, as knocking down enemies is worthless. However, some of these stealth missions aren't the "sneak past without being spotted" types. For instance, one early mission has you controlling Jack Bauer through an office building, blending in with a tour being held in the same building as you sneak through. It's a trial-and-error process, but it's unique, even if it's flawed.
Button-based mini-games bring up the rear of the game. Most of these are simple and require you to move the analog stick or press buttons at certain times. One common mini-game has you rerouting a connection to a certain node, which you control by pressing the face buttons. It's interesting, even if most of them are too easy. Another one is arranging letters to form a certain pattern. Like before, these can be too easy. Most of the others only appear a handful of times, and mostly rely on timing and memorization. They fit with the atmosphere, and are one of the more redeemable aspects of the game. Finally, in 3-4 missions, you get to interrogate a person by either shouting at them, being calm or coaxing them while keeping their heart rate at a manageable level. These are a nice twist, even if it's weird for Bauer to be extremely calm at one point and then shouting at the top of his lungs the next.
There's only one way to really describe the bulk of this game graphically, and that's "inconsistent". Everything looks about the best you could do for a PS2 game, but I've certainly seen other games released before this that looked significantly better. Player models are a joke, the only character that looks pretty faithful to their real-life actor counterpart is Jack Bauer. Most model's faces like Kim Bauer and Ryan Chappelle have weird mouths, Tony Almeida's face looks a little too ape-ish, and Michelle Dessler's model looks horribly modeled in every area. Beyond the looks, the animation is just horrible. They will jerk from one animation to the next with no fluidity, and there's clipping errors and oddities with physics items and ragdolls. Locations look anywhere from "pretty decent" to "looks like it was made at the last minute", which further shows the inconsistencies.
This game uses music from the TV show composed by Sean Callery, and a few new tracks appear. However, I couldn't tell the difference between a newly composed track and recycling a track from the TV show. Which isn't bad, because the music is absolutely fantastic; but there should be a strong distinction between the old and the new. Voice acting is one of the other top-notch elements of the game. Every actor who appeared on the TV show reprises their roles, from Kiefer Sutherland to Carlos Bernard to even stars with small appearances like Sarah Wynter (Kate Warner on the show) and Dennis Haysbert (President David Palmer). Some actors tend to give better performances than others, and they do a fine job for what its worth.
Once you complete missions, you're given a percentage rating, which usually differs from level to level. Beat a level at 90-100%, you'll get a bonus unlockable. The problem is all the unlockables are worthless. All but about 10 of them are player models with the following animations: Standing, walking and running. Not even characters like Bauer or Almeida are given additional animations. It's the SAME ANIMATIONS for EVERY CHARACTER. The other unlocks are also not as good, interviews with Bernard, Reiko Aylesworth and Elisha Cuthbert; promotional art and TV commercial spots are the remaining things, and while they're interesting, they just aren't as cool as, oh say, new weapons, an extra level, a behind-the-scenes look at the game, or playable music tracks. Basically you'll stop caring about getting high percentages once you get further along the game. Or you'll be like me and unlock the rest with a cheat code so you don't have to bother going back through them.
There's one last thing about this game. I remember watching or reading somewhere, it might've been some interview by a developer, but they said this would last 24 hours, like the length of a full season of the TV show. It doesn't. It doesn't even last 18 hours (the length of a full season without commercials). It lasts, at most, 8 hours. That's 1/3 of a full day and not even half of a full season. It makes sense, really: The way the game is structured shows that they didn't have enough time to add in more missions. And while switching between these are nice, it reminds me of a game in a different genre as this: Sonic Adventure 2. Its predecessor, Sonic Adventure, gave you the choice of which character to play as, while it was a more streamlined, jerkier experience in the sequel. That's how 24: The Game should have been. SCE Cambridge should have taken this approach and gave you the choice of which character to play as, with each character being able to flesh out more and more of the story. You could've been able to get more missions, have a more in-depth and less hackneyed story, and it could've worked.
For fans of 24, this is a dangerous purchase, even if you're a big fan. But the problem is that the majority of 24 fans tend to skew the older 20-30 something demographic, ones who usually do not play video games. But for those who do watch the show and play video games, this is something I can't even recommend as a rental. For a TV show I got hooked on quickly (well, at least when Season 4 was near completion), this should have gotten a much, much better treatment than this. But the best way to describe 24: The Game is simply "It's another bad licensed game and you should not play it, even if you are a fan." There's so much wrong with this game that even Jack Bauer couldn't solve this mystery, no matter how much help he gets. In fact, this game would probably piss him off so much, he would snap the disc in half.
Pros: Good voice acting and soundtrack, decent plot (what good of it there is), creative mini-game structure.
Cons: Bad shooting mechanics, bad driving mechanics, bad stealth mechanics, poorly conceived storyline.