IGI 3 The Mark: It would be
so easy and tempting to describe how bad The Mark is by making some cute remark
like, "The Mark is way off the mark," or "The lame gameplay is a
black mark against The Mark." However, that takes more effort than this
dreary, lackluster shooter from DreamCatcher and T7 Games deserves. Sure, it's
a budget shooter, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it's a very bad game.
The Mark wants to be like a
Hollywood-style buddy movie--in this case, a US Marine and a British mercenary
who must team up to stop London from being nuked by terrorists. It's a fairly
generic but passable plot device, but the game manages to get everything else
wrong. The plot itself is overly contrived and makes no sense. For example,
before they nuke London, the terrorists need to kill the marine and his sister
because they're the only people who can identify the missile they plan to use.
But wouldn't the missile be vaporized by the nuclear explosion? There's also
the fact that the bad guy's father, a gazillionaire, finds out about the plot
and wants to stop it. But instead of picking up the phone and calling, say, the
British government, he hires a mercenary to protect the marine. Because as long
as he's alive, the terrorists won't launch their missile because he could
identify it!
But wait, there's more. The
characters are like badly drawn caricatures. There's Steve "Fletch"
Fletcher and Austin Hawke, a couple of manly hero names if there ever were any.
They like to spout inane dialogue that's terribly delivered. They also fly
around in a small, one-man jet, which apparently defies the laws of physics
because the jet already has a separate pilot. At one point, the two heroes,
their pilot, and the sister are all on board. There must be a lot of sitting on
laps in there; how cozy.
The plot--as silly as it
is--could easily have been overlooked if The Mark delivered a decent shooting
experience, but it doesn't. This is a game that makes the act of shooting a gun
a chore. As you advance through each level, you'll battle an almost endless
stream of bad guys. Oftentimes the game "surprises" you by having
them pop out of corners and cut you down without warning, but after the 20th or
30th such encounter, this gets old. So you'll die a lot, memorize the location
of bad guys, and then get past a choke point on the third or fourth try.
Getting through the game requires the frequent application of quicksave and
quickload, as well as having the willpower to continue.
The Mark tries to mix things
up by letting you choose which hero to play as throughout the game. This lets
you experience a slightly different route through each level, but the
differences between the characters are negligible. You can also play the
campaign cooperatively with another player, though trying to find someone to
play with online is going to be very difficult--but more on that later.
Source: The Mark ReviewGameSpot.com
System= Pentium 4 CPU 1.8
GHz
RAM= 512 MB
Size= 308 MB
Video Memory= 128 MB
OS= Windows XP, 2000, Vista, 7 and Windows 8
RAM= 512 MB
Size= 308 MB
Video Memory= 128 MB
OS= Windows XP, 2000, Vista, 7 and Windows 8
