Underpinned by Unreal Engine 3, environments are beautifully mapped, drawn and rendered and are able to muster up the kind of imposing, depressing misery North Koreans have to endure daily in the name of Kim Jong Il's repressive regime.
Elemental effects such as fire and water have had special attention lavished upon them and succeed in convincing that, by the time this game is released next year, its visuals will be up to the task of holding their own against contemporaneous products.
Much is being made of the quality of the overarching AI system, not least the concept of a "freeform battlefield" in which players can tackle objectives via a number of routes.
However, the linearity of heavily scripted events undid many of these claims and seemed instead to reflect the corridor-heavy preferences of the game's inspirations. That said, much of the throat-slitting, close-quarter combat looks strategically satisfying, even if trip-alarm systems and hierarchical unit dynamics have been played out elsewhere many times before.
