Project Snwoblind

Reviewed by =Outlaw= on June 25, 2007  |  report this review

Nathan Frost is a futuristic soldier sworn to protect the state against its many enemies. Fortunately for him, the state has augmented its chilly grunt with an array of technologically advanced superpowers. Using these unnatural abilities and a whole load of guns, Nate kicks people's asses.

The unpretentious, no-frills storyline admirably attempts to weave together a plot about one maniacal super villain and the powerful EMP weapon he intends to use to devastate whole cities. But Nate's basic role as gun-toting point man for all things Armed Forces is plenty enough for Project: Snowblind to work. Even though we'd love to see the more in-depth characters and superlative writing / acting that Crystal D's previous Soul Reaver series was so well known for, Snowblind is pieced together with such style and tenacity that the lack of a legitimately engaging plot is practically irrelevant.

Like Allied Assault, Call of Duty, and a dozen other war games before it, Snowblind drops its protagonist in the middle of a lot of action and alongside or against dozens of enemies. Smartly, none of the AI comrades in Snowblind are controllable, which lets the player focus on preserving his own life while enjoying the bursts, rattles and blasts of warfare through a bunch of hearty missions.

Standalone missions with no real cohesion can put a hamper on excellent games of this type, so Crystal Dynamics opted to highlight the aforementioned storyline with mixed results. What the company also did was tie together strings of combat with the occasional computer interaction and mildly interesting pseudo-puzzle. Rhythmic or otherwise cleverer mini-games would have created computer interactions that were more interesting, but we can hardly fault the developers for omitting these specific gameplay variations, for they might have detracted from the action and the action needed to be relentless. Thankfully, this makes Snowblind a very well-paced and definitely frantic game.
The campaign directs players through fairly linear environments bristling with heavily armed enemies. Right from the beginning, Snowblind holds on tight and never loosens its grip. Our Snowblind-flavored adrenaline rush doesn't come from particularly smart enemies necessarily, but they feel fearsome enough. Oftentimes baddies are able to home in on Nathan's exact whereabouts, letting them inexplicably chase down the player with little mercy. They even roll and seek out cover when fired at, giving the impression that at least some of them are genuinely intelligent.

What is most exciting about the combat, however, isn't the AI... it's something else. The real "cool" comes from Snowblind's wonderful use of a variety of different enemies against wildly differing environments, combined with the occasionally overpowered piece of machinery. It's simply exciting to run down a corridor while the glass windows to your left explode from helicopter fire, the enemies to your front roll to relative safety, and