Made Man Review

It's unfortunate that having survived the collapse of Acclaim and struggled with the troubles of independent development, convinced by the vision behind the project, that SilverBack Studios find their long overdue 3rd-person shooter, Made Man, released in the same week as Microsoft's gargantuan Gears of War. Still this is a very different game and a considerably different prospect. Despite the parallels of extended development periods, that's where the similarities end; one may have reportedly cost $10 million to create, the other arrives on the shelves for a wallet-friendly price of £19.99.

Unfortunately there's no excuse for quality, regardless of price, and that's something that Made Man persistently struggles with.

Enlisting the assistance of the renowned Mafia author David Fisher along with real-life made man, Bill Bonanno, Made Man was originally unveiled as part of an epic trilogy of titles, under the guise of Interview With A Made Man by Acclaim at E3'04. The subsequent collapse of the former US giant left the startup UK studio facing an uncertain future, until the timely intervention of Fund4Games, whose financial backing has helped the game to fruition and finally on the shop shelves... but perhaps they shouldn't have bothered.

Following the story of Joey Verola, Made Man jumps between time periods, taking in locations such as North Carolina, Little Italy and Vietnam. Heavily influenced by Mafia film and literature, the jumping narrative and overall direction behind the storyline are the game's strongest quality, slowly drip-feeding details and information on a plot that revolves around double-crosses, dark secrets and stolen gold. Told by way of cut-scenes in between flashback missions from the car of Joey Verloa as he travels into town, it's a shame that any impulse to discover the outcome is destroyed by one of the most frustrating and uninspired experiences to be had on a console - videogames shouldn't make you this angry, even when they do involve wanton carnage and gratuitous violence.

Essentially a third-person shooter, like countless others we've seen on the PlayStation2, Made Man attempts to introduce a covering system that offers something slightly different with the option to dive to cover. An obtrusive targeting reticule appears on surfaces when this technique is available, though the implementation is so flawed and useless that you're probably better off forgetting about this right from the start. If Made Man had been a hyper realistic title then we could forgive the fact that Joey is still often shot when hiding behind cover, but as it stands the game is a frenzied action title that needs the sanctuary of cover and rarely provides it.

Covering the typical repertoire of handguns, shotguns, rifles and grenades, Made Man presents a mediocre representation of gun combat - and that's perhaps the best description that could be labeled. Whole heartedly unremarkable, combat rarely feels as though it's based around skill and more about luck and trial-and-error. Due to the plodding nature of the control setup, close-quarter combat becomes a test of luck over anything else, whilst the melee attacks are so hopeless that it's a question why Silverback Studios even went to the effort of creating them. Noted as a key feature, Joey can dual-wield many of the weapons to be found within the game, including the slightly unbelievable proposition of two assault rifles. Like much of the game the execution is weak, retaining a single targeting reticule, with the only difference being that ammo is consumed twice as fast!

Nothing but a straight-forward run-and-gun shooter, despite an ill-fated attempt at the occasional stealth sequence, Made Man embarrasses itself even further with one of the most generic implementations of slow-mo/bullet-time to ever feature in an action title. Essentially Max Payne without the style and techniques, slow-mo in Made Man is just that, slowing down the action but without any real benefits. Like the cover system, it's so ineffective that you'll probably never use it beyond when it's introduced for the first time. Like Max Payne there's no explanation for Joey's time-shifting abilities; but, unlike Remedy's title, the technique feels strange in the game's authentic Mafia setting and ultimately little more then a cheap gimmick to add another bullet-point to a feature list.

Compounding the game even further is the atrocious AI, which fails dismally to create a believable and convincing experience. Rarely more then regularly popping away from cover for a brief period, triggering opponents into action is heavily reliant on the player's position - thus you can have a firefight with anonymous Mafia Grunt #1 at the end of the corridor, and find somebody in the middle of it all completely failing to react. The list of inadequacies continues, resulting in an overall experience that never manages to engage and rarely feels more than a tired old shooter.

Completely uninspired and failing to evoke any sense of desire in the player, Made Man continues its path to videogame obscurity later on in the game when the difficulty rises sharply. Because the core camera/control method doesn't feel tight or responsive enough and because the covering system is negligible at best, later levels intensify the frustration beyond anything in recent recollection. Not that there's anything wrong with a difficult game if the fundamentals are spot on, Gears of War on Insane is fun because the camera, control and cover systems are spot-on; unfortunately that's not the case with Made Man, it's gameplay inadequacies leave the player with insurmountable difficulties, bringing the game to a frustrating halt that will endanger the wellbeing of your PS2 and your own blood-pressure.

Often the bottom line to whether a videogame is good or not, is the impression that it leaves on the player; whether you're hoping for the game to never end, or desperate for the credits to come and rescue you - Made Man definitely sits in the latter camp, that is if you have the perseverance to pull yourself through and stick with it beyond the first handful of levels.

Only the "boss" encounters with the persistent helicopter provide anything even bordering on memorable, leaving a sloppy, completely unremarkable and tired shooter that's better left on the shop shelves - for £19.99 there's plenty of Platinum Hits titles that deserve your attention.