A hostage situation is underway. The city’s finest crowd around the building where an innocent civilian is being held captive to begin negotiations and figure out what demands may be given. Across the way, a police sniper named John McAffrey sits patiently, lining the terrorist up in his sights. Against strict orders not to fire, and possibly to become a hero or just to end the showdown, John fires a single shot at his target. The next morning, the local paper’s headlines are full of stories like “Cop shoots hostage” and “Murdering Cop removed from force”. Destined to shame, John opens a failing business as a private investigator. To make matters worse, he finally gets a job from a client and then winds up getting mixed up with and blackmailed by the Mafia. This is where you come in …

This may sound like the next possible Vin Diesel movie to some, but it is the plot for a new game by JoWood called Cold Zero. The story to the game is very entertaining indeed, and you will get to visit over 16 locations around the world like Russia, Mexico, and the U.S. doing what you have to in order to survive amongst some of the worst slime of the criminal underworld in various indoor and outdoor locations presented in a top down, ¾ perspective similar to that of games like Neverwinter Nights and including real time combat and action. Movement is also reminiscent of those types of games since left clicking and right clicking will move, perform actions, or fire ... but there’s a reason why you might be reminded of those titles set in different time periods when you play it.

One neat aspect of Cold Zero is the interesting style of gameplay, and JoWood has taken a page from RPG’s (like NWN mentioned above) and placed it in a modern day world for a unique experience. As you kill opponents and complete objectives, you gain experience and can level John up in things like strength and fighting, or into such abilities as technology (to pick locks and repair weapons) and camouflage to sneak around. The missions themselves also take a page out of stealth action titles like Metal Gear Solid or constant action games like FPS titles, and you can choose to go on an all out violent assault to get the job done, or present less risk to yourself and others by sneaking around and trying to kill quietly. Either can be effective based on your preference, but keep in mind that some missions will have you rescuing hostages which can get dangerous if a firefight breaks out.

Another RPG inspired element to the game is in the ability to outfit your character as you see fit in things from various clothing articles and body armor to over 100 different weapons like the Beretta, Desert Eagle, and automatic style weapons for ranged attacks. There are also melee weapons for use as well like straight razors and baseball bats in case the action gets up close and personal, and everything degrades like it would in real life as it keeps getting used frequently. You will also pick up various objects along the way and one neat aspect is that you can even strip the bodies of dead opponents of things like money, watches, CD Walkmans, or even an adult magazine or two, and all items can be sold at the local gun or pawn shop in between missions to get some cash or if you decide that they aren’t going to be used anymore.

While I was really impressed overall with this new JoWood title, one particularly aggravating issue that I encountered was the camera. While games using a similar setup allow you to use the left/right arrow keys to rotate it around as you see fit, Cold Zero instead relies on you holding the Mouse 3 (or other) button down and moving the mouse to swing the camera around. Needless to say, emerging into an area of bad guys or having them come around a corner at a bad angle not only proved annoying, but also caused some deaths as well since it’s almost impossible to aim and move the mouse (that you are using to aim) around just so you can get a clear shot at an enemy. 

The graphics in Cold Zero look good overall, and both indoor and outdoor areas are well detailed and include little lighting effects and things that add to the ambiance of the gameplay. A lot of the environment, while pretty, will not go transparent (as I mentioned in my above camera issue) which caused some headaches and annoyance when attacked at an angle in which you couldn’t see. The sound was well written overall, including the music and voice acting, and the dialogue found during cut scenes was entertaining and helped move the story along. 

Although there are some potentially frustrating camera issues that can cause some problems, the majority of the game was creative and fun to play, and the story itself was entertaining. If you are an RPG and action fan who is looking for a little something different than your typical dragons or alien based dungeon runner, Cold Zero could be a welcome change from the normal pace. There will also be a multiplayer mode available in the completed version later this month, but it was unavailable at the time of the review.    

Gameplay: 7.4
The RPG experience point gaining and leveling up system worked surprisingly well for a modern day cop story, and the developers were nice enough to add in a variety of options to play like stealth, all out action, and even places to hide and ambush an enemy and whatnot. I especially liked the pawnshop system of being able to strip bodies of various items and sell them for cash or weapons, and the levels and mixture of environments and missions was done well. The camera unfortunately was frustrating, and being unable to swivel using keys vs. the mouse resulted in a lot of lost energy and quite a few deaths during the game.

Graphics: 7.9
Cold Zero’s graphics looked good for the most part, and I was impressed with the variety in the levels and the indoor / outdoor transition in a lot of them. The characters moved well, even if they were designed a little blocky, and there were even things like lighting effects and remains of enemies that would remain where killed when you were busy raising the body count.

Sound: 8.0
The sound was decent in Cold Zero as well, and the bursting of gunfire and shooting and whatnot were good. The dialogue didn’t sound too scripted overall, and the story and voices of the characters was entertaining and helped to move the plot along.

Difficulty: Medium
While the game is challenging, there is an extensive and easy to learn tutorial at the beginning that you can play, and the ability to play the game a couple of different ways (Solid Snake or Rambo style … your choice) added to the fun and allowed you to proceed through the levels whatever way you saw fit to do.

Concept: 7.8
The blending of two different styles of gameplay was unique, and was definitely an entertaining change from the RPG based games that I am used to playing. The story was also entertaining, and the variety in the different areas was nice to break up repetition.

Multiplayer: N/A

There will be a multiplayer option in the finished game, but I was unable to get any servers or addresses when I tried to get online.

Overall: 7.5
Overall, I felt that the game was a lot of fun to play, and even when I got annoyed at getting killed due to the camera giving me a problem (which happened more than it probably should have), I found myself going back in and playing it again. If you are a fan of RPG and action titles, at least check this one out. It’s a welcome and enjoyable change from the normal style that we’ve seen and played many times over in the past.