Summary
One of the WORST licensed games I've ever seen in my entire life (and I thought there was worse...)
The Good
Well, where to begin? Ok, not everything about the game is totally terrible. The music, for instance, doesn't totally suck (the CD Audio music, anyway), and there were a couple of interesting weapons and some nice looking environments, but I'll have to end it there.
The Bad
Ohhhh boy...here's where I'm about to blow out all the pent-up hatred I have for this waste of programming. Get ready kiddies, it's going to be a bumpy ride...
First off, the FMV intro sucks. It's supposed to be a snippet of the intro for the TV series, but it's in such a horribly low resolution that I can't make out crap. Second, all Shatner does is just sit there and tell you (in an FMV clip, of course) what your mission is, and yells at you if you even DARE shoot one civilian (which is pretty easy to do, let me tell ya). As for the game itself...the AI is probably the stupidest I've ever seen in any 3D shooter yet. One example: there's supposed to be these jibaku (suicidal or self-destructing in Japanese) androids in some stages that rush at you and explode if they see you, but they don't even do ANYTHING! They just look like normal people, and when they see you, all they do is beep loudly and run around in circles. Also, enemies don't even fire half the time, instead just running around and allowing themselves to be killed by the environmental hazards (of which there are hardly any). The animation is appalling; everything and everyone moves like they have chronic arthritis or something. Which reminds me: your character in this game (who of course has no name and is just some dude you play as) has NO ANIMATION!! That's right! Don't believe me? Just find a mirror somewhere and move around. He doesn't walk, he SLIDES! For this, from now on, I'll call him "Eerie Sliding Guy".
Bosses are a joke, and can be defeated even if you just tickle them with a stunner shot. Enemy strength seems extremely unbalanced, as some enemies just fall when you blow on them, or take dozens of shots and scream for more. And maybe it's just me, but whenever I pull out a weapon, no matter WHERE I am (even in a basement with no one around), people and cops start yelling. Oh, might I also add that the voices are just simply terrible. They sound like they were voiced by janitorial staff as opposed to at LEAST the office staff.
Gameplay is totally pants. You just run through the level, grab a key or two, find the boss, and tickle him a little to make him give up a Matrix symbol. When the level's over, you have to enter the Matrix and try to find the corrisponding symbol to find out part of a puzzle. However, the Matrix is far too big, and you can easily get lost in it. They should've just made the Matrix stages seperate areas that you play in, away from the rest of the area, right after the stage is over.
The gameplay is probably the worst part of it all. The weapons don't seem to be very much different from one another, and their affects aren't worth seeing (save for the weapon that turns enemies into big rib roasts...I swear that's what it looks like!). You have jumping and ducking abilities, but they seem to do no good. You can hardly jump, and ducking doesn't put you any lower to the ground. Also, it's very hard to keep track of three different health bars. You have one for health, one for consciousness, and some other one I forgot about. You lose health, you die. You lose consciousness, you die. WHAT GIVES?? And don't get me started on that AI again...
The Bottom Line
Quite simply, I tell them to avoid this game like the black plague. I bought it at a CompUSA some time ago for $1.88 (yes, one dollar and 88 cents), and I feel like I should've just saved it and gotten a pizza slice instead. This is one of the worst games of all time, and it's also a crying shame because the engine this game used (the Build engine from 3D Realms) deserves better treatment than this. Maybe a true hardcore gamer on hand telling William Shatner that his story was totally trashed in this game would've helped wonders...