Review: Read the review, then go and play the game. Once you do that tell me if you think the main character looks like James Bond.
When the Dreamcast was launched back in September of 1999, a game entitled House of the Dead 2 was released. It was very popular among fans of the shooter genre; however, Sega never released an official light-gun for the Dreamcast. Luckily though, some third party developers did, but shooting games that could utilize them were hard to come by. Until Confidential Mission that is.
The review continues below
You will find that light-gun peripheral support is used in Confidential Mission, and it performs quite well in the game. The game works just like House of the Dead 2 and all the light-gun games before it. Basically, the screen moves and you shoot the bad guys as they pop up. With Interact’s StarFire LightBlaster light-gun, the action was fast and furious, and even without the light-gun the action was still intense.
Confidential Mission also offers “branching missions.” Throughout a mission you will be faced with little challenges, and if you fail them your path will be altered. For example, in the first mission, you have to shoot a grappling hook across to the next building. If you miss the target (a big clock) then you fall down and take a different path to the end of the level, instead of sliding down the wire and getting all the bonus points. There are also instances when you will have to rescue a hostage from falling off a train, and other things to that nature.
Unfortunately, these challenges only appear in three missions throughout the game. That’s because there’s only thee missions in the game! Thankfully, there is more than just the Mission mode. There is also the Training, Partner, and Another Day modes of play. Training mode places you in the Confidential Mission Force’s training facility where you must complete a variety of tasks, if you are successful in completing them all then the Another Day mode will become available. This is where you play the original three missions, only with different paths. Partner mode pretty much explains itself; you play with a friend. Except, if you’re Player 1 then you can only shoot the bad guys that are red, and your partner can only shoot the ones that are blue. This puts a new spin on two player shooters.
With that said, Confidential Mission can offer good replay value (at least compared to other shooters). It also boasts great graphics. Visually the game looks excellent, with a fast frame-rate, a lot of colors, and just an overall crisp look. It doesn’t break any barriers in the graphics department for the Dreamcast, but it looks wonderful.
The audio effects in Confidential are a mixed bag. The music and voices of the characters aren’t anything memorable, however other effects are decent. The first thing that comes to mind is the sound of the train in the second mission. When you are up on the roof of the train, it actually sounds like a real train. Other then that, the audio effects are pretty average.
