As the world's busiest professional killer, John Jack is being told "Eliminate our enemies, or we'll eliminate you."  Well, the game doesn't spell it out as simply as that but you get the point.  Jack will be forced to dole out some 12 gauge anger on his prey, but trust me when I say, you won't find anything new or exciting here.  Please read on.

Contract J.A.C.K. (CJ) is the incredibly inferior prequel to the No One Lives Forever games, in those games, the storyline was arguably slick, the gameplay was varied and the game was as addictive as it was fun.  Gone are the stealth weapons like the piano wire, sleeping gas, gone is the clever voice-overs done by Cate Archer, quite simply gone is the clever fun that this series is famous for. 

For a contract killer, Jack is incredibly bullish, not that the game allows you to even try and be stealthy.  As you play, cloned bad guys come at you wave after wave after wave after...  you get the point.  And for each one of these bad guys, you will plug with countless amounts of ammunition to the point that you will wonder where the devil all the ammo is.  For you see, each bad guy you dispatch has ammo on him, but the number of bullets constantly varies usually each fallen man has but a handful of ammunition.  The A.I. is itself rather poor as the bad guys will always seem to have a leg or head standing out which is easy enough, sure they will throw a grenade at you occasionally or implement some sort of offense, but most of the time you can merely turn the corner and mow down a hallway filled with them with relative ease, especially during the early parts of the game.

The levels themselves are incredibly forced to the point where you feel as if you are being led around by your nose.  Often I would go back to see if I missed anything like a hallway or a room that might have contained some additional equipment and more often then not I found myself pretty disappointed.  Additionally, I just couldn't help but feel that the look of the levels was too basic, boxes are everywhere as are waist high bars or fences, nothing terribly surprising in terms of interactivity, which is just plain sad since this is the same company that made the killer DOS title "Blood".

You would think from the box that there would be a myriad of weapons, and the fact that our hero is a contract killer but CJ just doesn't deliver the goods.  The Tommy gun, the AK-47, the explosive tipped arrows on the crossbow, nary an original weapon in the bunch.  And the hype surrounding the "Bacalov Corrector" hand cannons that is so prominently displayed on the box isn't even available until the end of the game.  It's just another disappointment in a long list of disappointments.  

Now I really can't complain too much regarding the actual graphics because it doesn't look terrible.  The wall textures and lighting effects are all fine, as are the colors and once you get the gamma set correctly you will see little details that are nice.  But the characters themselves are rather pathetic, the seemingly endless supply of black and tan suited bad guys is nearly uncountable. 

I can't recommend this game for purchase, even at $39.99 which seems to be the going price.  If you have to play it, then at least wait a couple of months.  This game is undoubtedly headed for the bargain bin.  Drab enemies and weapons, average graphics but below average levels make this a "prequel" that does not do the series justice.

Gameplay: 6.0

It's a first person shooter that plays like every other first person shooter.  What makes this no fun is the constant gunning of monotonous bad guys, the inability to actually use some sort of finesse and the lack of exploration while in the forced levels, ouch!

Graphics: 7.0

Clean lines and an interesting space station level, but for the most part we're talking about a game that has average backgrounds surrounded by not so interesting looking people.

Sound: 7.1

The music is certainly upbeat, to a fault.  The guns sound good as does the voice acting.  The audio is probably the games most redeeming quality.    

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 6.2

What should have been a nifty idea is shallowly executed with flawed A.I. no sort of clever gadget or gameplay and the missing voice over work that was done oh-so-well in No One Lives Forever.

Multiplayer: 6.2

Level builder my fanny, there is nothing particularly engaging or fascinating playing this game online since there aren't that many people playing.  At least not when I tried playing it up.

Overall: 6.3

I think that Monolith knows they made an inferior product, with so many high profile first person shooters out currently AND coming down the pipe, CJ is merely an example of a good group of game makers going through the motions.  I miss the quirkiness of the Blood titles, the gaming fun of SHOGO and the clever gameplay of NOLF.  Where did my favorite sleeper company go?