In Winback you play as Jean-Luc a member of S.C.A.T., a top-secret band of anti-terrorist operatives sent in to stop a terrorist group called the Crying Lions who are weilding a dangerous satellite. GAMEPLAY: At first glance Winback looks like any standard actioneer, but underneath its surface is a very solid stealth/action game. Winback plays a little like 007:Everything or Nothing. You can use the environment to your advantage by poping up or around the game's walls, barrels, crates, etc, but adds a few touches of stealth if the gamer wishes to take out their enemies from behind (usually that's not too effective though). To keep the game from becoming too repetitive though the designers utilized different scenarios to put your character in. For example enemies can sometimes immediatley surround you whether there's a place for cover or not which causes the gamer to have to react quickly to get themselves out of any tight spots. The game also packs plenty of boss fights. While they're not quite like Metal Gear's the boss fights are effective enough to add variety to the game and every one of them are different. One of my favorite aspects of Winback is the game's execution in its style of progression and this may be a little hard to explain. You see, the game starts and ends without ever skipping anything as the game takes place over about a five hour period depending on how quickly you beat the game which also effects which of the three endings you'll get. What I mean is that you ALWAYS stay with your character. For example the next level will ALWAYS start right where the last level ended. This helps to create a feeling that you are really going into this facility to stop this terrorist ransom as you meet up with your missing squad-mates and as you realize their being killed off one by one. GRAPHICS: Winback's graphics are one of its strong points to me. Now by today's standards (August 2005) the graphics would seem very mediocre, but this game was released in Spring 2001. The levels may look a little bland; however, the lighting and character models are FANTASTIC for their time. Only complaint is how the characters run which is extremely stiff-looking. SOUND: Sound isn't that great in this game. In fact, Winback has some of the worst voice-acting I've seen (or heard) in this generation, but I guess to some people like me, bad voice-acting only makes the experiance. Otherwise the music is appropriate and the gun shots/explosions are average. VALUE: Well, I bought my copy a few months ago for $7.99, so value would be a little different for me. The different endings and the decent multiplayer should pack on a few more hours to the experiance as well as the fact as the game is ultra-cheap now. ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE: Could use a deeper multiplayer, the voice-acting is abysmal, the sound fx are average, and the characters run wierd. BOTTOM LINE: If you liked the gameplay in 007 Everything or Nothing or your looking for a solid action fix, look around for Winback. I think it's worth it!
A fantastic game, and a fantastic start to a fantastic series of games (Project Poseidon being the sequel). It's missions well laid out and enjoyably tactical, you'll soon find yourself on the edge of your seat as soo... Read Full Review
This is one of the games in my collection that i haven't seen for a while until the other day when i decided to dig up old games and play them again. As for this one i still remember this being one of the first games i p... Read Full Review
