As already mentioned, IGI 2: Covert Strike is an attempt to take a first-person shooter and wrap it in a stealth-action experience. There's really not a whole lot new to either genre that you'll find in IGI 2 as it follows the same old scheme: you're assigned missions, dropped into the hot zone, sneak around and take out bad guys. You've got the standard package of weaponry, high-tech binoculars and night vision goggles to assist you in your quest to stop evil terrorists from stealing weapons and generally causing havoc throughout the world.

When you start the game, you'll be forced to sit through a pretty low-grade cut scene where the CGI is almost cartoonish. If you don't save your game immediately after this terribly long cinema, you'll have to watch it again when you restart the level. You can't skip these sequences, so it can get annoying rather quickly. Speaking of things being annoying, the load times in IGI 2 are awful. There were moments where I was sure the game must have crashed, only to find it suddenly pick up and load another chunk of the level. What gets really bothersome is the fact that loading a saved game takes even longer than starting a new one, forcing you to choose between watching the cinematics again or watching the "now loading" screen for several minutes.

In the first mission, you're dropped into the wilderness to "stealth" your way to the first objective. Your mission commander informs you that a frontal assault is a bad idea (as he warns you with most missions), and you should sneak past cameras and guards, all while being sure you only use silenced weapons. Why then, I must ask, do they start you with the MP5 machine pistol, which even when silenced sounds like a chaingun set on "slaughterhouse"? Don't pull the trigger on that thing or you'll give yourself away. Instead, you'll need to switch to your silenced pistol and creep down the hillside to find an entrance, which of course is covered by a security camera. A well-aimed shot will take down the camera, but oddly enough, you can't shoot out many of the lights. This is annoying, since we've all gotten used to taking out corridor lighting. It kills a lot of the stealthy feel of the IGI 2, since you should be able to shoot out the lights, switch to thermal vision, and sneak through those enemy infested buildings. Alas, that's not the case here.

So, next up, you enter a building chock full of opposition. Due to the overwhelming number of targets available, the pistol just won't cut it, so you'll have to switch to the MP5, which makes a helluva racket. Does anyone outdoors notice? Heck no, they go on about their business, even though it sounds like a buzz saw is running rampant just a few feet away. The bad guys even shout out at the top of their lungs as you gun them down, yet their friends never come to help. The AI is that bad.

Speaking of the AI, it is generally too bizarre to comprehend. If you ever trip an alarm, every terrorist and his brother will go running around the level hunting for you. Once tripped, the alarm never shuts off, leaving you with two options: run in with guns blazing, or just restart the level. Due to the AI, the frontal assault is probably the worst tactic, as the AI's aim is infallible. While your opponents may be so dumb as to do nothing when you shoot at them from a distance, they simply do not miss when they open fire. Just as an example; I set off an alarm and was immediately taking hits from a guard I could barely see. I ran into the woods to escape his attack, and even while I was hidden behind a tree in a dense forest almost a mile away, he was still shredding me with his machine pistol. I'm sure the over-the-top accuracy is how they intended to enforce the stealth requirement of IGI 2, but it just makes the game impossible to enjoy if you're not the most perfect game player around.

Overall, the gameplay could have been great, but due to the improperly tuned AI, it becomes an OK experience which can border on frustrating. If you don't play a level perfectly, you can expect to restart it several times. To boost the gameplay a bit, the level designs have some interesting challenges with mixes of sneaking, sniping and all-out gun fighting which keeps IGI 2 from slipping to the level of a basic arcade shooter.

A "mixed bag" is the best way I can define the graphics in IGI 2. While they aren't great, they aren't terrible either, it's just that they could use some fine-tuning. First off, faces of the NPC's look like someone cut out heads from magazine photos, scanned them in, and stuck them on generic bodies. Most character sprites are blocky with completely artificial looking skin.

The environments have some nice details and offer respectable texturing, but aren't anything to write home about. Animations, especially gun reloading , character movement and foliage swaying all look very lifelike.

Sound

There's nothing remarkable about IGI 2's soundtrack, which is pretty minimal and the in-game sounds are quite plain. Thankfully, the sound is designed so that you can actually hear the rustling of leaves as enemies sneak up on you, the beep of the sweeping security cameras and the reassuring click of a fresh magazine being reloaded into your pistol.

There are enough levels in IGI 2 to keep you playing it for several hours, and with CodeMasters making more available online, you should be playing this game for quite some time. Along with the expansive levels, there's an online option, which is basically a Quake-style deathmatch mode, which seems somewhat strange considering IGI 2 is all meant to be all about stealth.

While IGI 2: Covert Strike ranks average across the board, it is still worth picking up if you enjoy stealth-action titles and want to see what happens when you throw FPS gameplay into the mix. The huge levels can get a little tedious, and the AI downright obnoxious, but it's still a title worth checking out if you're looking for a new stealth-shooter.