Beyond The Law: The Third Wave

Details: Category: Computer; By ccgr; 01.Jun; Hits: 7670

System Requirements CPU: 800mhz RAM: 128MB OS: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Mac OS X HDD: 500MB ESRB: Teen for violence and suggestive themes

The mob wants to take our country down in three waves. The first wave consists of corruption, blackmail, and trafficking. The second wave has bribery and uses murder to gain control. The third and final wave poses a nuclear threat to our nation?s capital. It?s up to you and your team of specialists to put an end to this plot.

How do I draft my team?

Before each mission you can choose different members for your team. Your available funds determine whom you can hire. The prices range from $10,000 to $24,000 which goes pretty fast since you start with only $35,000. There are many different kinds of specialists you can hire. There are several available classes of specialists: tactical, technical, snipers, all round, bodyguards, etc. Each type has a unique weapon as well as advantages and disadvantages. For example, the bodyguard has the most health; on the other hand, the sniper is the most accurate but has the least amount of ammo. Each mission briefing has a recommendation of whom you should hire on your team.

How do I get more money?

Each mission has objectives you must complete in order to move on. After you beat a mission you are awarded white stars for not killing members of your team, killing all the guards, not saving, or beating the level before the suggested time. After you get ten white stars, you earn a gold star and some more money.

What mission objectives are there?

Your mission objectives will vary from infiltrating enemy hideouts to rescuing hostages. Along the way you?ll be placing and disarming bombs, collecting sensitive data, as well as dodging & disabling cameras and motion detectors. When it comes to explosives, there are many time attack levels where you don?t have much time to meet the objectives and get your team out of there! Whenever you rescue a hostage you must keep them alive or else you will fail your mission.

What kinds of enemies are there?

There are electronic devices you have to be careful of such as cameras, motion detectors and deadly laser beams. Fortunately you can disable most of them. Sometimes you will fail a mission if you activate one. Guard dogs are fast and very deadly, so take them out quickly! The enemy guards range from simple patrolmen, to mob bosses with tommy guns. Be very careful out there, they will attack in groups.

A.I.

The artificial intelligence is a mixed bag in this game. When the enemy does see you, it usually calls for help or sounds an alarm. The enemy goes by sight and sound. Often times you can distract them by firing a random shot. When you kill an enemy, sometimes if another is close by, they won?t even be fazed that their buddy went down. When you kill a bad guy, you can hide their body by simply placing a tarp over it. Apparently the enemy won?t see anything peculiar with green tarps lying around.

Graphics

The graphics are all 2D so the video card requirements are pretty low. The levels are pretty well designed and the objects to manipulate are easy to distinguish. The characters you add to your team are more unique than the enemies you fight. The mob bosses, guards, thugs, and watchmen all look the same. In this game it?s safe to judge a book by its cover. There are movie cut scenes before some of the levels; they are vague but add a nice feel to the game.

Sound

The background and theme music is really good but the voice acting gets to be very repetitive. Your team will say things like ?I?m on my way?, ?You got it?, ?Right?, ?Before you can say ?Organized Crime??. The enemy has their own repetitive phrases like ?Alarm!? even if there is no alarm on that particular level.

Appropriateness

This game is based on stopping the mob from attacking our nation?s capital. That will involve a lot of killing and violence. One of the rewards is based on killing all of the enemy units in the level. There are not that many levels that tell you not to kill the bad guys. Some of the locations you will be infiltrating are rather seedy. One level is called Sex Mall because of the prostitution there. You don?t see any nudity but you do see some working girls wearing their outfits for hire. I don?t recall any swearing but the mission briefings can be a little blunt at times.

Final thoughts

This is a fun strategy game that makes you think and use your resources wisely. Unlike many games, you can?t just run into an area and spray bullets everywhere. You have to act quickly and quietly. The pressure is on with those time attack levels. I hated those! Fortunately on easy mode I had enough time to complete them. For those of you who like the S.W.A.T. style games, you may want to give this game a try. Unfortunately, since there is no multiplayer, the only way to extend game play is to try harder difficulties.