Mission: Impossible (N64 review)

Developer: Infogrames Entertainment
Publisher: Ocean Software
Released: 1998

Mission: Impossible is a third-person stealth-action game that was later released on the Sony PlayStation (1999).

You're given a briefing before each of the five missions and the radar in the top-right highlights points of interest. Lots of trial and error is still involved though due to certain tasks requiring specific timing and your character being in the right location. Moving your character is very clunky and because of the low frame-rate there's a slight lag between pushing a direction and it being recognised. The camera is awful in third-person mode and it's puzzling why the developers didn't use the C buttons to let you control the angle. Shooting is a jarring experience as you suddenly go from a third-person mode to a behind-the-shoulder angle and while you're wrestling with the cursor to aim your shot the enemy has already taken away some of your life-bar. Ammo always seems to be extremely limited too which leads to frustration. Despite all of its shortcomings some of the game's missions are moderately fun. In particular, the Embassy mission sees you undercover as a party guest and you need to spike the Ambassadors drink and clone his face to gain access to a restricted room. There's also a cool mission where you're strapped to a bungee cord and need to lower yourself into a room while avoiding lasers. The final mission sees you taking control of a boat and using a mounted gun to blow up the enemy base; you have unlimited ammo and it's very satisfying! Most of the other missions are forgettable though with too much face cloning and some boring sniper and protect missions. The graphics are truly awful with heavy fog and they look more like a bad PS1 game.

Mission: Impossible is a game that hasn't aged very well and the controls and graphics actually make it more difficult to play. It does have a handful of interesting missions though so if you're willing to forgive its shortcomings there's a modest amount of fun to be had here.

Random trivia: The PlayStation port was developed by X-Ample Architectures and had a number of additions including extra voice acting.