Your Mission, should you choose to accept it…
- NA release: 23rd March 2004
- JP release: 25th March 2004
- EU release: 2nd April 2004
- Developer: Paradigm Entertainment
- Publisher: Atari
- NGC Magazine: 69%
- Mods Used: Widescreen Hack
While the first Mission: Impossible game had to come up with new ideas due to being an early 3D game – and it ended up creating something similar to what Hitman would likely do – Paradigm were very clearly ordered to copy Splinter Cell. Operation Surma has a lot of elements from Splinter Cell, but I don’t think the developers had time to work out why Splinter Cell worked.
In fact, this game made me appreciate some of the ridiculous aspects of Splinter Cell a bit more. Splinter Cell often seemed a bit too bright for it to be believable for guards to not spot you, but I realise now that that was a choice made in order to make the game playable. Operation Surma is far too dark – impossible to play dark. And yet, quite often, enemies will still spot you in locations where you can’t make out enemies on the screen, with the first happening round the corner from where you start the game.
Which means you have to play pretty much the entire game with the hideous looking night vision on, which is not nice at all. Even then, guards appear from nowhere and cameras are really difficult to see. It’s very much trial and error than thinking on your toes, and the immensely cumbersome inventory menu really doesn’t help matters. Everything feels like it’s on the wrong button.
Throughout the game, you will encounter set pieces that do mix things up a bit, like spying on people with a wasp drone, protecting someone with a sniper rifle or skydiving and using a jetpack to land on an open cargo plane. Which sounds and looks great, but is dreadful to control. So most of it is a bad Splinter Cell copy and the unique bits aren’t fun to play.
Poor
Accomplished at times, but lacking the flexibility and freedom that makes other stealth games so much fun.
Jes Bickham, NGC Magazine #93
Remake or remaster?
With improved gameplay, it could be good fun.
Official Ways to get the game
There is no official way to get Mission: Impossible: Operation Surma
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