A popular first-person shooter game for Windows
Project IGI is one of the most famous first-person shooter games for Windows PCs. The storyline follows Agent Jones, whose primary objective is to capture Josef Priboi to extract information about a stolen warhead. In order to achieve this objective, the action game takes you through multiple missions, locations, and jobs. This helps you get closer to Josef’s whereabouts. Once you complete a mission, new challenges unlock.
Developed by Innerloop Studio and published by Eidos Interactive, the game offers multiple stealth missions, challenges, and weapons. Compared to Call of Duty, GTA V, and PUBG, it’s an excellent choice for fans interested in the action genre.
The dangerous life of a secret agent
Project IGI aims to prevent terrorism. You’re tasked with retrieving a nuclear warhead, which was stolen by the enemy. The game begins in a discreet location in the Soviet Union, and requires you to extract critical information from a long-time contact. This person is being held at Estonia’s military field, and you need to protect him from torture and death.
The storyline
The engaging storyline gets driven by multiple cutscenes that are available at the beginning or the end of every mission. These cutscenes are stylish with special lighting effects, dramatic camerawork, and interesting dialog delivery. In the shooter game’s cutscenes, multiple characters engage in conversations about the war, nuclear power, missions, etc.
While the main character is a high-profile secret agent, he’s only one man. You'll need to be careful on missions as you hack computers, sneak around cameras, walk through the shadows, and deactivate surveillance systems.
In the game Project IGI, you always need to be on your toes. There are times when you have confrontations with security guards in fast-paced action sequences. While you’re wearing body armor, just a few shots can lead to a painful death. In order to improve your health, you'll need a medical kit from an infirmary. There’s usually only one kit in the area, and often guarded by security officers.
What about the gameplay?
It’s worth mentioning that Project IGI is a single-player game. It comes with 14 tough missions, which are complex and large. However, each mission has been divided into multiple smaller objectives. Unfortunately, you can’t save the game in the middle of a mission.
Even when you set the difficulty level to ‘lowest’, some missions can be quite challenging to complete. Another hurdle of the game is that it doesn't let you restart from the point of the game where your character dies. Instead, annoyingly you will start from scratch, which on the other hand, adds to the complexity of the game.
It would be nice to see an automatic save added to the game since the main objective is to infiltrate military bases. You will often run into hordes of security guards. You'll need to keep a lookout because some of them will be expecting your arrival, and will try to take you down with sniper rifles where you can't even see them. Death and bloody quarrels await you at every corner.
When it comes to the game’s AI mechanism, it’s still spotty and needs to be improved. At times, enemies don’t react while you kill their comrades. Similarly, guards can appear out of nowhere, killing your character without fairplay.
How many weapon choices do you have?
In this shooter game, you have access to a range of weapons. Some of these are available for special missions, while others can be picked up from dead guards. The most commonly used weapons include combat knives (for silent kills), anti-tank weapons, and rifles. Other popular choices include Desert Eagle, Sniper Rifle, Glock 17, Spas 12, MP5, Pancor Automatic Shotgun, M16, Uzi, Minimi, hand grenades, and more.
Since most of the game elements require observation and stealth strategies, you get a range of gadgets to complement your weapons. For instance, there’s a digital compass that helps you move in the right direction. With binoculars, you can view everything happening in a long range. There’s even a PDA, which lists multiple mission objectives. Each mission is assigned a number, which connects to a live satellite video feed.
How are the graphics?
Despite some minor lags, Project IGI comes with excellent graphics. Throughout the game, textures are highly detailed and colorful. They feature ambient lighting, which depicts different times of the day and weather conditions. The weapon skins and models are also realistic, and the weapons interact with various elements in the environment. For instance, they can leave bullet holes in cars and walls, shatter glasses, and leave their marks across the target.
This shooter game features engaging background score and audio elements, which perfectly complement the graphics. The audio has been well-crafted, and keeps you on edge in tense moments. Unfortunately, the voiceovers feel bland, and Estonian and Russian security guards yell in English instead of in their native languages. Apart from a few weak dialogs, the sound effects have been designed to keep you immersed in the storyline.
An interactive shooter game
Project IGI is a delightful offering for shooter game fans. Compared to other alternative games in the genre, this multi-mission shooter has a different gameplay style. However, we think the game’s AI needs improvement, as at times, the responses to the player’s movements can be unsatisfactory. Beyond this small limitation, the multiple weapon choices, excellent graphics, and engaging storyline make this game a good option for fans of the stealth shooter genre.
PROS
- Comes with excellent graphics
- Allows customizable key mapping
- Offers good background score
- Features multiple missions
CONS
- No multiplayer mode
- No tutorials
