Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Ice Nine

Written by Tony Kennetz on August 11, 2003

Updated Look: I think this is what would happen if Metal Gear Solid went first personЕ

First person shooters aren't usually know for their ability to force gamers to think out complex strategies or sneak around a base instead of blasting everything that moves. Torus Games and BAM! Entertainment don't seem to care, which is why they're currently readying their title Ice Nine for a mid-September release this year.

I-9 follows the story of James Clayton, a CIA recruit who had some things turn for the worst the first time he went through secret agent training. James' instructor, Walter Burke, stuck the proverbial knife in his back in an attempt to get Clayton to do the work of the enemy without his knowledge. This led to the death of a fellow field officer and a failed attempted to fully join the ranks of the CIA. Now he's back and ready to fight the good fight once more, although the past still haunts him as he tries once again to unite with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Many owners of the SOCOM headset have been sorely disappointed with its minimal use outside of the game that made voice communication a big deal on PS2 in the first place. Now Ice Nine will finally give you all a chance to dust off the ole piece of plastic and give it some good use. Although you won't be able to do much talking via the headset, what you will be able to do is get information from your intelligence assistant (so to speak), Layla. Fear not, however, if you don't have it you'll still get the info though your basic sound system, but it's a cool touch to get the information fed right into your ear.

Enemy AI is something that the men and women over at Torus have been working diligently on to make sure that everything that happens in the game is what you would see happen in real life. If you make sure that you aren't making any noise or you are wearing a disguise, the guards and other foes will become relaxed and more laid back, making it easier to pass them without engaging in fire fights. But if you knock something over and it makes a loud noise, the enemies' line of sight will become bigger (or Уcone of sight,Ф think Metal Gear Solid's radar) and they will start to hunt you down. Further more, if you run into a baddie they aren't likely to sit around and let you beat you down and they're certainly not going to radio for backup right next to you. Torus promises that the AI in this game acts more like a human being than most other games in the stealth genre.

A total of 20 weapons have been confirmed so far for I-9, including some rather interesting ones that seem to come straight out of a James Bond movie. The most unique punisher would be the PDA which has the ability to fire off anything from poisoned darts to tracking bugs, which should make some battles pretty interesting (I imagine the guards laughing about a secret agent pointing a PDA at them only to get a dart in the eye, ouch). Proximity mines are also among the 20 weapons that are said to be in the game. One interesting note is that you can only carry two weapons at any given time, so firefights are probably going to be much harder to compete in and also something to avoid as much as humanly possible.

Alex Hutchinson, lead producer of Ice Nine, took part in an interview with Gaming Target a few months back, and in that interview he stated that we could expect twelve playable levels with several different locales and art styles. Such locations include an office building, mines, forests, submarines and more.

Another big draw to I-9 is the branching story line, a concept that has been embraced by many a developer but almost never in the FPS genre. As always, it is the decisions you make and how you perform that will determine your final destination, but what is fairly outstanding is that it is possible to actually convert your character to the alignment of evil and start working for the other side. That's not to say you'll know for sure if you're doing the right thing in the first place, following your instinct may lead you the right way, but it may also just lead you astray.

Graphically I-9 is looking pretty good although it has some ground to make up if it wants to hang with the big boys (granted, it has some more time in development to make that ground up). Renderware is being used to power the graphics and Torus is boasting the use of ragdoll physics, although at this point most of us have yet to see how well they have managed in this regard.