Navy Seals: Weapons of Mass Destruction is the sequel to ValuSoft’s Elite Forces: Navy Seals, which was released last year about this time.  Navy Seals: WMD is a budget title meaning that it can be found at retailers for about twenty dollars.  Unfortunately, this is too much to pay for this game, as it certainly isn’t worth it.  Navy Seals: WMD has bland graphics, horribly dull AI, and simplistic, barebones level design, and really isn’t any fun whatsoever.  If you’re short on cash, looking for a good budget title and see this one on the shelf, keep on looking.

Navy Seals: WMD is a FPS game that puts you in the shoes of an elite Navy Seal.  You’ll battle your way through nine different levels in various (and conveniently news-worthy) locations like Iraq and North Korea.  As you infiltrate your enemies throughout these levels, you’ll also have a computer-controlled teammate that you can order around.

Although the game is called “Navy Seals”, the actual gameplay has little to nothing to do with being a member of the elite group.  The game doesn’t feature any stealth elements, and any strategy is kept to a bare minimum.  In terms of design, this game simply follows the generic “run and gun” pattern found in tons of other games.

While the game does present some very different environments, the overall level design is very bland.  Most of the levels are too similarly designed and there just isn’t enough variation among them.  The enemies are few and far between, and they are incredibly dumb.  They don’t respond unless you either fire on them from afar or walk up about five feet away from them.  They have two moves unless otherwise scripted, they duck and shoot or they roll and shoot.  They’ll chase you down and fire on you as well, making it very easy to draw them out and bump them off one by one.  They also have terrible aim, and they’ll tend to unload copious amounts of bullets at you from a very close range without hitting you.

I said earlier that you had a computer-controlled teammate to command within the game.  Allow me to rephrase that:  You have an insipid teammate to which you can offer two whole commands.  That’s right, two.  You can either tell him to either follow or hold fire, and that’s about it.  It's okay, however, since this isn’t a really big issue because you’re teammate tends to die off really quickly due to his inherent stupidity.

The game’s graphics are pretty uninspired.  The character models are simplistic and plain looking, and their animations are robotic and stiff.  The environments are also quite plain and lack any kind of quality textures.  Objects within Navy Seals: WMD also look pretty lousy, as jeeps will have square jagged wheels.

There isn’t much sound to speak of in Navy Seals: WMD, but what is there is pretty lame.  The gunfire sounds inaccurate (a silenced sub-machine gun makes a bizarre puttering sound), and the enemies’ voices and screams when you shoot them grow repetitive really quickly.  There is no music to speak of.

Okay, so you may think I’m being a bit harsh since it is a budget title.  But the thing is, there are so many better budget titles out there, that ones like this just seem to give all titles an unfairly bad name.  In fact, there are a few great games out there (like the Serious Sam series for one) that are exclusively budget titles, meaning that it is certainly possible to make a good (if not great) budget title that is fun to say.  So in other words, there is really no excuse for this game to be this bad.

Gameplay: 3.5
What can I say?  The level design is boring, the AI is horrendous, and the game’s strategy elements are pretty much non-existent.

Graphics: 4.0 

The character models are bland and simplistic, and are very unnaturally animated.  The game’s environments are devoid of any kind of complex textures and the objects in the game look pretty lousy 

Sound: 3.5
The sound is game is pretty much on par with the rest of it.  Enemy voices are repetitive, and gunfire is inaccurate.  Plus, there is no music whatsoever to speak of.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 3.5
For a game that is billed as a “Navy Seals” simulation, Navy Seals: WMD doesn’t really have anything in it that would reflect this.  When you think Navy Seals, you expect to have some level of strategy and skill in infiltrating an area effectively.  However, what you get with Navy Seals: WMD is generic “run and gun” gameplay that doesn’t require any kind of thought or skill.

Overall: 3.5
With horrid AI, lousy visuals, and boring level design, Navy Seals: Weapons of Mass Destruction is one budget title best left on the shelf.