If you wanted to purchase this game online at say, EBworld, there is a small section beneath this title that says, "EB recommends" and below it are other titles like Rainbow Six 3 and Soldier of Fortune 2, as if to say that this title is A) On par with these other hit games or B) Not recommended, since it is not under the header "EB Recommends".

Suffice to say, I did not have an enjoyable time playing this game.  Aside from being played on the heels of another Activision Value stinker "Secret Service: Security Breach" I had just watched the movie S.W.A.T. and was tremendously unimpressed.  Would it have mattered?  Nope, FBI could stand alone in a desert with 75 mile an hour winds blowing and it would still stink in Seattle.

OK, I would be remiss if I didn't say something good about the game before I dragged out all of the bad stuff.  And believe it or not, the game does have some clever ideas.  First, when you start a new mission, you are given a diagram of the building you are about to enter.  Several key marks are on the map indicating possible entry points and other tidbits.  So far, so cool.  Then you go to a screen where you are allowed to pick from an assortment of equipment and ready yourself for what surely will be an exciting and action packed adventure.  Well, this is where the fun and coolness of the game ends.  And where I start to go into detail about what's wrong with this game.

Each level has a timer attached to it, the point of the game is that negotiations have broken down and there is only a few crucial minutes left before the hostage takers start killing the hostages.  YOU MUST, enter the building and escort all of the hostages out of the building before the timer expires.  There is no differentiating here folks, even if you kill all the bad guys, YOU MUST escort all of the hostages out of the building which quite frankly is silly.  The hostages are the human equivalent of a lemming.  They run off in odd directions, they get caught in door jambs, stairwells, a bug on the floor, yup, you name it and I guarantee that a hostage will get stuck on it.  Let me tell you the new degrees of frustration that this game has opened up for me.  Having eliminated all of the terrorists/bad guys/bank robbers/vacuum salesmen and still having several minutes left to complete the level AND NOT BEING ABLE to escort three people down one flight of stairs and out the front door of a building is completely insane!  I'm getting riled up right now just thinking about this.  

Next, the game has just average graphics, not that a title like this would have needed phenomenal graphics but the lag that abounds in this title and the simple fact that doors never completely open when you open them is just plain silly.  And regarding the aforementioned door, once it's opened (about 10 inches scale) you can then walk right through the darn thing.  And sense you can't see what is on the other side, often I found myself shot.  So while the graphics are merely OK, the execution of the interaction is horrible.  

How many times can a phrase be repeated?  Don't know and quite frankly I do not want to find out.  I tuned my sound down so I could hear nothing which was preferable to the constant repeating phrases that the hostages spewed forth.  

I had a couple of friends come over and try this game out and the biggest debate was over the mouse speed and control.  You see, there is no option for either speeding up or slowing down the mouse speed.  And while I got semi-used to it after a while, one of my friends found it far too slow and refused to even play the game more then five minutes.  We did however all agree that the game was and does fail on several levels.

Gameplay: 5.0
Hoo boy, the game has an issue with mouse speed while the rest of the controls can be configured to your liking the interaction of the environments is spotty and the hostages would apparently rather eat broken glass then follow their rescuer out of a burning building.  

Graphics: 6.5
They are merely OK as I stated before.  The game has a clever looking weapons load out screen and the initial graphics seemed like some sinister actions may be around the corner.  But then I saw a hostage taker and he looked kinda dumb and the hostage wasn't much better.  The architecture of the game was done quite well but then the interiors of the building didn't have much in terms of objects or details.  Plus the whole door opening problem that I talked about earlier.    

Sound: 5.1
The all important gunfire sounds were done fairly well but I think the person doing the voice over work should be embarrassed for themselves as they really overdid some of those phrases.  As if someone in a hostage situation would say the same thing 8 times, and say nothing else.  

Difficulty: Hard
It's only hard because the hostages refuse to follow you out of the the building.  It's hard because the graphics betray you by not letting you open the door.  It's hard because the game states that there are multiple solutions to each scenario when that just really doesn't seem to be the case.  Hard for all the wrong reasons.  

Concept: 6.0
It should have been allot more cooler then the game finally executes.  The premise was quite cool with the blueprints of a building showing you multiple entry ways.  And the weapon load out screen was quite clever even though it has been done before, it's just sad that they put out yet another game that even though it only costs $19.99 yet isn't worth the price of a blank CD. 

Overall: 5.0
I'm not really dumber for having played this title, it's just I couldn't help but think this game was made by the interns over at Activision.  They put forth some good effort on some of the pieces but not on all of them and ultimately what could have been a slick title was clearly rough and disorganized.