One very interesting idea turned into 3 different but equally as disappointing parts. Add bad voice acting and voila!

User Rating: 4 | The Plan PS2
Th3 Plan is one of those cheap but promising things where you think some sleeper hits are gonna come out in the PS2's last glorious days and they'll prove to be at least a few hours of fun but proves to be an annoying experience. The game starts out with a backstory cutscene explaining why your character, Poker, is in the hoosegow. A plan to steal two Rembrant paintings goes awry when your driver speeds off with you behind the museum's bars and the cops minutes away. Leaving you to rot, he is then stuck with a hot painting he can't sell and you're doing card tricks in an orange jumpsuit. Your partner, The Mind, comes on in with the lady (who might possibly have the most irritating voice of all time this side of Samurai X's dub) to bust you out. This is when you get to the good parts.

The controls are shoddily mapped, giving you different actions for the same buttons or areas where you can't interact with what's in front of you. It's even a pain to move the camera up to figure out your own cell number to give to your partner, which you should've known by heart since it's in front of your bed and you've been in jail for 5 years. But that's a story thing, I digress. Once you complete the mission to look at numbers, the controls change to the mastermind pressing the switches. You walk around a prison freely for some reason at this point and subdue a guard so you can ~try~ to press the cell release button. It shouldn't be that hard really. Fast forward past a sneaking mission, you're now able to switch cameras and control people seperately. This objective? Talk to a patrol guard about getting some sleep with one character as you walk right by him with another. If you mess this, and you will, the guard pulls out his gun and fires at you wildly. I actually enjoyed this part because it's hilarious watching you try to evade bullets while crouch-strafing as your buddy just stands there. Ugh.

As you progress, the game sounds and plays exactly as I have already mentioned. Not necessarily broken but not good at all. The idea to have a stealthy story-driven spy game with multiple characters you can switch with at any time is a good one. I would've loved to play a team of spies just kind of creeping out, but this would've worked better as a direct-to-DVD movie with Gary Sinise than a game.