IGI 2 Covert Strike is a computer game developed
by Innerloop Studios and released by Codemasters in 2003. The game is a
stealth-based first person shooter. It is the sequel to Innerloop's Project
I.G.I.: I'm Going In. The original, published by Eidos Interactive, offered only
single-player play. Chris Ryan, a former Special Air Service operative best
known for being the lone successful escapee of Bravo Two Zero, served as a
consultant to the game. The box art is similar to the poster for GoldenEye.
The
game's plot features a rogue Chinese General, "Wu Xing" as the
primary antagonist. Xing orchestrates various events (such as armed robbery of
advanced prototype technology from the Russian mafia) in order to get
Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weaponry on a space rocket that he has launch
control over. At the end of the game, the protagonist David Jones is finally
able to defeat him and stop the launch.
The
game was banned in China, because it "intentionally blackened China and
the Chinese army's image". It received generally negative reviews by
critics.
Missions and Storyline
The
game is divided into missions, and the story is presented in cut scenes, shown
before and after every mission, with animated characters rendered in real-time
and pre-recorded speech. This approach is similar to other games in this genre,
which don't rely on video, instead providing a comparable quality of visual and
dramatic appeal, reusing the same in-game 3D engine for cut scene rendering.
Missions
have objectives that must all be completed before the mission ends.
Straight-forward
tactics are not encouraged, with stealthy and covert movement giving the player
a better rating, rank and chance of survival, with the highest attainable
ranking entitled David Jones.
Multiple
paths exist for every mission, with the most obvious and daunting being a noisy
gun-fight, because in every mission Jones is outnumbered anywhere from 20-1 up
to 50-1. Every mission presents an opportunity for large groups of enemies to
be bypassed or sneaked past, undiscovered. Certain missions even require entire
operations to be carried out undetected, i.e. without giving enemies a chance
to sound the alarm, as the name Covert Strike suggests.
At
the start of a new game, a difficulty level can be chosen, changing the number
of bullets Jones takes before dying, the intelligence of the enemy and group
AI, and the number of save-games available.
Covert Operation
The
player can use the available Map computer to recon the mission area, remotely
viewing a real-time satellite image of the terrain with structures and outdoor
enemies clearly visible, which is also necessary to plan strike routes, after
monitoring enemy patrol routes and other strategic information. Using the
binoculars and thermal goggles, nearby enemies can be located, sometimes even
through walls.
Jones
is equipped with lock picks, and safe crackers making him capable of forced
entry into any locked room or safe, enabling noiseless and stealthy entry into
restricted areas and buildings, and obtaining military secrets or private information,
and objects. Remote-controlled CR-4 explosives are also available for use on
certain ground targets, meaning large structures can be destroyed safely, from
a distance, leaving Jones undetected. Air strikes can be called for on certain
missions, using the laser designator to pinpoint ground targets for bombing.
Stealthy Shooting
During
gameplay, the player has access to a large arsenal of real world weapons,
including handguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, light machine guns and RPGs.
Although these cannot be bought, the weapons available in game levels can be
exchanged with carried ones.
Players
begin missions with certain fixed or carry-over weapons from earlier missions,
although additional weapons can be obtained from killed enemies, the player is
required to assess future tasks and equip the most suitable weapons, judging
based on the cut scene briefing, and the objectives list.
Like
its prequel, realism was intended to be paramount in this game, which features
more than 30 accurately modeled real-world weapons which look and behave
exactly like they do in real life[4], including their rate of fire and loading
times.
Silenced weapons, completely unavailable in the prequel, such as the
G17-SD and SOCOM handguns, the SMG-2 sub-machine gun, and the PSG-1SD sniping
rifle, enable silent and stealthy killing even from great distances, leaving
the enemy clueless and Jones completely undetected.
Heavy weapons such as the MP5-A3 and MP5-SD3 sub-machine guns, AK-47 and
G36 assault rifles, with faster fire and reloading rates, more range or hitting
power are needed for all-out gun-battles, where usage is usually at the cost of
being discovered by multiple nearby enemies, and therefore giving Jones less
chance of survival.
Balanced weapons such as the SVD Dragunov and M82A1-T sniping rifles,
the G11 assault rifle, however, provide a balance of both power and stealth.
Emitting noise, yet usable from great distances, means that, if used
strategically while under cover, Jones can go undetected while effecting a
1-shot, 1-kill hit rate.
Bullets
also perform and penetrate differently, based on their speed, weight and
caliber, and target material: wood, steel, plastic or flesh, meaning players
will be able to kill multiple targets with one shot or hit targets right
through cover.[5] Targets are affected not only by Jones's movement and stance
but also the calculated kickback for each weapon.
Only
2 guns can be carried at any given time and the rest have to be left behind,
unlike its prequel where Jones could carry any number, promoting critical
thinking and weapon understanding, as each weapon has very different strengths
and side-effects.[6] In addition to the two chosen weapons, a Combat Knife is
carried at all times and always available for use, enabling noiseless kills and
hand-to-hand combat when out of ammunition or without guns.
Characters
David
Jones: The protagonist of the entire game. He is, in fact, one of the best
officers in the IGI headquarters. He is capable of accomplishing difficult tasks
and missions without anyone's assistance, and is also pictured as a fearless
man who does not hesitate to kill his targets at any spot. David is also
described as an officer who does not give up so easily at risky and emergency
situations, but stands firm to face and solve the situation calmly.
Robert
Quest: Robert appears as one of the antagonists in this game. A strong man in
his early fifties, Robert acts as David's temporary veteran pilot, piloting him
to every single location in Russia to obtain the chips. Unknown to David,
Robert has actually co-operated secretly with David's mission director in order
to get the full set of the EMP chips and the blueprints. When David succeeds in
getting all the chips, Robert betrays him by threatening that he'll shoot him
if he doesn't jump off, the latter of which David chooses. Robert was killed by
David in the seaport in Egypt.
Phillip
White: The mission director; is actually a good friend of David's. He guides
David sincerely throughout all the missions in Russia to recover the stolen EMP
chips to obtain the chips for himself and Robert Quest, his close comrade. Both
of them infiltrated the IGI for decades and had earned great trust in the
agency just to wait for the very moment. After betraying David with Robert, he
and Robert escape for sanctuary in China, where they obey the command of
General Wu Xing and handed the EMP chips to him. Finally, he was killed by
General Wu Xing for accusing the general of killing Robert.
Rebecca
Anya: Anya is one of the female officers operating in the IGI agency, although
she usually spends most of the time in front of the monitor as David's new
mission director after the dreadful incident. She has a typically cool manner
of soldiers and does her job well, causing David to succeed in every mission
without further dangers or failures.
Jach
Priboi: A middle-aged man, Jach is actually an old pal of David's, but had not
communicated with him for the past few years. Since the Russian fiasco, Jach
had moved his illegal weapons trade to Libya, where he was held captive by the
Libyan Intelligence for unknown purposes. While serving close surveillance in
Libya, he unexpectedly encounters David who intends to rescue him out. He tries
his best to assist David in every way and eventually recovers his important
trade documents and also kills Major Zaleb Said in the end, fulfilling his
intention and revenge.
Senator
Pat Lenehan: Senator Lenehan is the main administrator and founder of the IGI
agency, which was created in order to combat the threat of war. Lenehan seems
to express great interest in David's missions. He constantly goes to the
command center to monitor David's missions together with Anya. An elderly old
man, he is pictured as one who cares for the others. Lenehan is also shown organizing
large-scale backup troops for one of David's missions.
Plot
The
game's protagonist, David Jones,[7] an agent working for the Institute for
Geotactical Intelligence and former British SAS operator,[8], was sent to the
Carpathian mountains in Ukraine to recover a set of EMP chips stolen by a group
of Russian mafia from a high-tech US facility.[9] After HALO jumping and
infiltrating the weather station in the mountains and retrieving one of the EMP
chips, his mission director (Phillip White) commands him to go to retrieve the
remaining EMP chips so that the IGI researchers can launch a full scale
research on the chips to determine their real usage against the thieves.then he
goes tobridge and destroys it.Then in production facility he gets half of emp chips.Thenafter
he is betrayed by His PILOT ROBORT QUEST AND MISSION DIRECTION PHLLIP WHITE as
they takes EMP obtained by Jones, after a series of events, he eventually finds
himself at the borders of Romania, where he is then forced to evade the
incoming border patrols.
Meanwhile,
his former pilot and mission director had escaped. The IGI was not able to
detect their whereabouts after the incident, but spent enough efforts to get an
important detail that Phillip White had made several weapons and military deals
with Jach Priboi in Libya. Under Anya, his new mission director, he sets off to
Libya and searches for the middle-aged Priboi, who had been locked up by the
Libyan Intelligence as he was supplying weapons to the rebel forces.
After
rescuing Priboi and escaping out of the Libyan prison, Priboi states that all
the information which David needs are in a safe in his villa, which was at that
time being used as a command center by the Libyan general, Major Zaleb Said.
David decides to go to the villa to get the information. Surprisingly, after
expunging much effort and going through many of gunfights, Priboi discovers
that Major Said had taken his papers and he then vows angrily to take them
back. He suggests David to take control of the helicopter in his airbase not
far away from the villa in order to confront Major Said. They get the
helicopter without much conflict, and manage to gun Major Said down amidst the
confusion and get the papers back.[10] Upon returning to his villa, Priboi
tells David that the trade that he made with David's former missions director
was in a seaport in Egypt.
David
sets off to the port without hesitation, and discovers that Robert Quest and
Phillip White were actually cooperating with an unknown country to operate the
chips. David kills his former pilot in the aforementioned seaport, and takes a
seaplane to the unknown country and ventures off to the Spratly Islands near
China[11], where Anya states to be running suspicious activities throughout the
time. What Anya said was quite true; David found his mission director
cooperating in secrecy with a Chinese general, whom he found out later to be
General Wu Xing, who plans to use the chips to blindfold US intelligence and
cripple the powers within.
Later
David finds his former mission director Phillip White killed by General Wu Xing
himself, as the former accused the latter of killing his friend Robert Quest,
who was actually killed by David at the Egyptian port. In Wu Xing's secret
weapons lab David Jones gets to know that the General was going to start a
"World War III". He then engages in a gunfight with Wu Xing killing
the latter.
After
some chaos and confusion, David tracks the entire plan location to a large and
closely-guarded rocket launch pad, where Anya asks him to disable the system
immediately before the launch is made and causes an international incident.
With efforts, David then succeeds in preventing the rocket from heading towards
its programmed destination and to detonate somewhere safe. Finally, he prevents
a major disaster from occurring, and the world is once again safe and
sound.
