The Sum of All Fears Review

It's not an uncommon occurrence that a major Hollywood movie release is accompanied by a matching PC game, as both publishers and movie producers are looking to cash in on the hoopla, and at the same time, reach as many potential consumers as possible. It's also not uncommon that these movie-based games are huge steaming piles of monkey feces. The marriage of movies and videogames has not always been a happy one. Either the movie is good, and the game is crap (Die Hard), or the game rocks, but the movie is terrible (Tomb Raider). But there are those rare occurrences when both the movie and the game are fairly entertaining.

Stomp on his head, make sure he's dead!

The meeting was a drag.

So goes the story of Ubi's recently released squad-shooter, The Sum of All Fears. Based on Tom Clancy's book and Paramount's motion picture, The Sum of All Fears PC game is an attempt by Ubi to make as many dollars as they can, with as few production expenses as possible. A smart business move, and given the popularity of the movie starring Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman, a justified one.

Lucky for us gamers, Ubi was decent enough not to charge for this game as if it were a full-blown release. The Sum of All Fears PC game will set you back for about $30 bucks, which is about half-way between an expansion pack and a full blown game title. An honest enough move by the publishers, which recognizes the fact they didn't have to "build this title from scratch," so to speak, and could time its release to coincide with the release of the motion picture.

On New Year's Eve, a band of renegade militia members from the hills of West Virginia seize a television station and broadcast their demands on the air. The F.B.I's Hostage Rescue Team is called in to deal with the situation. But this is only the first in a series of events that will take the team members from the mountains of West Virginia to the diamond mines of South Africa, and from the deserts of the Middle East to the corridors of wealth and power in Austria. At stake is the future of the free world, as terrorists unleash the most destructive weapon known to mankind - The Sum of All Fears! Hey, it's Tom Clancy, and if you're familiar with his work, you know the good guys always get to save the free world in the end. Granted, all they get is a pat on the back, a few medals and the girl, but that last "item" isn't so bad, now is it?

The Sum of All Fears is built around the Ghost Recon engine, and so is the basic structure of the gameplay, but with several crucial differences. In TSoAF, you won't get to control different teams; all you need to do is concentrate on your two or three support guys. This makes the gameplay a lot less tactical, and a lot more streamlined and action-oriented. All you have is one simple mini-map and a white line that should navigate you to your designated waypoint. You get in, shoot the bad guys, grab the docs or whatever and get out. It's as simple as that. Also, there's no assigning of experience points once you've completed the mission. Although your team members will get medals, and there'll be a record of how many missions they've accomplished (and survived), you cannot assign experience points like you could in Ghost Recon. So, that's another aspect in which TSoAF was simplified over GC. After all, this is more of a mass market title to support the movie release, than a game for hard-core military squad shooter buffs. One other big difference over GC is the fact that you're now a member of an elite counter-terrorist squad, and not a soldier in the U.S. army. However, some of the weapons in the game might fool you, as the arsenal includes all kinds of M4's and M16's (as far as I know, not your standard CT infiltration type of weapons).

Nobody around. This place is creepy.

The stairway to hell.

In terms of the visuals, I'm pleased to inform you that The Sum of All Fears looks even better and more polished than Ghost Recon. The frame-rate seems higher at 32-bit color, and the textures look a lot nicer (I'd say that even the shadows look a bit better, but that's an entirely subjective opinion). Also, the maps don't have that claustrophobic feel to them, but that could be due to the fact that (as I said) the gameplay is a lot more streamlined and it comes down to getting in, finishing your objectives, and getting out. There is hardly any wondering around the map in this game.

The same as the graphics, the sounds seem a bit more polished, too, but overall, it's pretty much your standard Red Storm's R6-type of music and sfx.

Bearing in mind that this game is more of a marketing stunt than a bona fide game project, TSoAF plays decently enough. I like the fact that it's a lot more action-oriented and that the controls are dumbed down, because you can just sit down, relax and play a mission or two. However, all the tactical features (and some RPG features) from Ghost Recon are gone, and that causes the action to get rather repetitive and downright boring after a while. At normal settings, my guy would auto-aim, and with some deadly accuracy too, which narrows my duties to carefully moving around and guessing where the programmers have placed the awaiting tango. The enemy AI is well-done, in a sense that it has to look for you first before it shoots. In other words, the bad guys cannot spot you and cap you from a mile away. Though this is a welcome feature in terms of realism, it makes my job even easier, as you can catch some of the terrorist off-guard. All this can render the action of its much-needed suspense, which makes the missions a lot less interesting down the stretch. Still, the game's flow is pretty nice, and it's almost comparable to a weekend novel (no offense, Tom!) - Modestly fun and it makes the time go by fast. And for $30 bucks, I'd even recommend buying it! Hardly any replay value, but if you liked the movie, and you're familiar with previous Tom Clancy inspired games by Red Storm, you just might enjoy some of the action you squeeze out from it.