Okay, I'm going to tell you one thing about Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter right off the bat. This isn't the best game ever made. But, I think a good case can be made that it's a solid title, even if it doesn't push the envelope nearly as far as some had expected. When the game was first announced, it made some pretty high promises, and although not all those promises have been kept, the game comes through rather well.
For the uninitiated, Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter sets itself apart from the rest of the pack by combining two game genres...First-Person-Shooters and Space Combat Sims. It's a good idea, and for the most part, developers Warthog have done an admirable job. The game controls well, the graphics display a high level of polish and flair, and the gameplay is tight, both inside and outside the cockpit. To be fair, the game has more than its' share of detractors, but I think a lot of these people are judging it by what it could have been, rather than what it is.
As ex-Black Flag frontman (and Mace Griffin voice actor) Henry Rollins explained in a recent interview, Mace Griffin is the story of a 'good man done wrong'. At the beginning of the game, tough guy Mace Griffin is a member of the Space Rangers, a group of interstellar law enforcers whose duties include policing a lawless area of space known as the Vagner system. The Vagner system is the point of contention between a number of corporations, each of which desires the vast mineral and natural resources of the Vagner system for their own. To mediate disputes between the various governmental and economic factions vying for control of the Vagner system, the Space Rangers are founded. The game's first mission takes place during Mace's last mission with the Rangers. Not to give the plot away, but Mace soon finds himself disgraced and thrown into the clink for a decade. When he's finally released, he finds the Rangers disbanded. Suspecting he was set up, Mace, with the help of a massive alien friend, enlists as a Bounty Hunter, figuring he'll need the money and resources to track down whoever it was that set him up.
The story is decent, though not particularly engaging. Like most action-oriented title, however, it's just enough to give the player an excuse to massacre lots and lots of baddies as they wind their way towards the eventual goal. For better or worse, Mace Griffin is an incredibly linear game. This isn't Grand Theft Auto, that's for sure. Generally speaking, there's only one way to complete your goal, and that's to proceed forward, killing anybody that gets in your way. To be honest, this is probably for the best. Mace Griffin aims squarely towards delivering a fun first-person-shooter, and it succeeds quite well. The game throws monkeywrenches in the mix by forcing you to contend with a constantly changing set of objectives. Though each mission seems very straightforward at first, the game's designers do their level best to keep the situation far from stable. Nothing is ever as easy as going from point A to point B. This achieves two things: First and foremost, it adds some variety to the game. While ostensibly, you're still running-and-gunning your way through the entire level, forcing you to do things like commandeer enemy dropships, crawl through maintenance tunnels, crawl across rooftops, and ride mine carts keeps things fresh and exciting. Secondly, these things give the game a very cinematic feel. There's no doubt that the game is full of cliches...riding the mine carts, for instance. But for what it's worth, that mine car sequence is one of the best I've played in a console title.
It must be said that the game's flying sequences are well done, too. You won't be mistaking this for Freespace 2, or even Colony Wars, but it is pretty damn entertaining to fight off wave after wave of enemy fighters during the game's space combat levels. You don't spend very much time in the cockpit (basically at the beginning of each level, and sometimes at the end or during the middle), but when you do it provides a nice change of pace. One level even calls for you to disable an enemy craft, dock, board it, and clear it of enemies in FPS mode...all without a load screen. Can't say I've ever seen that before.
The enemy AI is serviceable. You won't see any squad-based tactics or intelligent group behavior, but the baddies are smart enough to seek cover and use it. You'll find yourself dodging thrown grenades fairly regularly, and snipers do their best to keep their distance (though the same can't be said for rocket-launcher wielding enemies).
The space combat is a different story. While there's no doubt that enemy craft can be hard to hit; this very often has more to do with their speed and maneuverability than it does with their piloting ability. And the major pitfall here is that you can conveniently park your craft against an asteroid or other big, stationary object and blast away at ease while your foes fly about randomly, seemingly unable to discern your location.
The weapons loadout in Mace Griffin is impressive. Not 'Unreal Tournament' or 'Timesplitters 2' impressive, but impressive nonetheless. And unlike many games, in which later weapons render your earlier ones useless by comparison, you'll likely use every weapon throughout the game. Mace's main weapon is a fairly cool miniature minigun (a mini-minigun, if you will) that acts as a standard assault rifle. Combined with the integrated grenade launcher, this is the gun you'll probably get the most use out of. Mace also packs a rapid-fire handgun and a shock stick as standard sidearms, each of which is very effective. Later on, you'll lay your hands on sniper rifles, plasma assault rifles, rocket launchers...the usual lot. Some of the more powerful weapons are quite cool, like the sonic cannon, which can either render your foes immobile with a blast of sonic energy, or liquefy them entirely. One weapon isn't even in the manual...it fires a steady beam of electrical energy which, while it stuns and lightly damages standard foes, it's real use isn't revealed until late in the game.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how bloody this game is. It's not widely mentioned (as far as I've seen), but blasting a wave of foes usually leaves the surrounding area absolutely covered in blood and gore. This is easily one of the most violent FPS titles I've ever played...it doesn't really reach Solider of Fortune levels of gore, but it's damn close.
If nothing else, Mace Griffin looks damn good. The environments are well designed, and impressively rendered. Graphic enhancements abound. One level calls for you to take a swim in a subterranean lake on a remote asteroid, and when you emerge on the far side of the grotto, you're treated to a really beautiful alien landscape, with weird rock formations jutting from the surface of the water, everything bathed in a weird golden glow. The rest of the game is similarly well done...nothing will make you gasp, but nice touches abound. Some of the environments are truly huge, and the fact that the framerate almost never dips is a testament to the developer's skills. The character models are good, too, and they move well. Death animations are decent, though after the first couple of hours, you'll have seen just about every grisly demise they have at their disposal.
Fans of Uncle Hank (as I prefer to call Mr. Rollins) will probably be a little disappointed at his monotone delivery. Maybe that's what the character called for, but I just was never convinced that Henry was 'into' the role. Can't say I blame him, though...Griffin is a pretty one-note character. If he didn't have that bloodthirsty lust for revenge driving him, he'd probably have nothing going for him at all. The rest of the voice cast is predictably decent, though nothing special. To be honest, gamers have come to expect a certain level of cheeziness from game voiceovers, and if nothing else, Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter is less cheezy than most. The rest of the sound fares well. The weapon sounds are powerful and distinct...you'll learn pretty quickly to discern between the various weapons by sound alone. I don't know how useful that is, but each weapon's report is perfectly crafted. Things take a dive once you enter deep space, though. The ship's engines are usually waaaay too loud; drowning out everything, including the weapon sounds and even the voiceovers. There are a number of moments where you won't know exactly what's going on because you couldn't hear the voiceovers while engaging in space combat. You can't even turn down the effects to make it better, because turning down the sound effects also turns down the voiceovers. Thankfully, it really doesn't affect the game, since it's so linear.
It must be said that Mace Griffin suffers from some fairly odd bugs. None of these are game-stoppers, mind you...mostly they're merely humorous. Most glaringly, at times the shell-casings from Mace's minigun will remain suspended in mid-air after a particularly hot firefight. I did once encounter a nasty bug when traversing a ship-to-ship docking corridor in which it wouldn't let me move forward. After a few hops, I was clear, but I was worried I'd have to reload the game.
The save system in Mace Griffin is a bit odd. When you start the game, you're given a choice of perhaps a dozen save-slots; each named after a different bird-of-prey. After starting, the game will periodically autosave to that slot, usually whenever you pass a given checkpoint. You can replay from any level or checkpoint, but doing so will cause the game to re-save it in that slot when you reach the next checkpoint, so backtracking is advised against.
One more caveat to potential buyers: Mace Griffin has no multiplayer. Nada. Nothing. Fans of the FPS genre have long come to expect some sort of multiplayer option, even if it's tacked on at the last second. The developers behind Mace Griffin decided not to pursue this, and instead deliver a decent singleplayer mode. That said, Mace Griffin is one seriously long game. I mean, not just 'long for an FPS' long, but 'long for any kind of game' long. No joke...I probably spent as much time finishing this title as I have some shorter RPG's. Each level can stretch on for hours, some as many as three+, and there are over a dozen of them. An experienced gamer can expect to put this baby down in about 20 hours or so, and if you can only put in an hour or day, you’ll be playing this one for the better part of a month. So, while there really isn't much replayability to speak of, the game certainly delivers the first time through.
As I said at the outset, Mace Griffin isn't the greatest game ever made, but it certainly isn't the worst. I personally had a very good time with it, and recommend it to anyone looking for a good, solid singleplayer FPS fix.
