Rogue Ops Critic Reviews

The story progression, variety of missions and locations, appropriate alternate costumes and great controls make it easy to buy into this world.

It's a good game, but it's more of an expansion and a variation of the other, more innovative spy games that are out there.

The stealth in Rogue Ops is serious business, residing somewhere between "Metal Gear" and "Splinter Cell" in terms of mechanics, i.e., not at all passive.

Lacks the originality and, more importantly, polish of the games it strives to be -- and no amount of heroine sexiness or humorous one-liners can make us ignore that.

The intelligent touches and relative difficulty make Rogue Ops generally fun for fans of the genre. The unevenness in the presentation and controls keep it from really setting the genre on fire.

Every time I was about to demolish my television and PS2 in a rock-star room-trashing fit, some neat little gadget or cool sequence came back to keep me hooked.

Another minor issue is that while Nikki is death while on the stealthy offensive, she's not much good if the combat suddenly gets up-close... the moral of the story, we suppose, being don't let the enemy get close to begin with.

7 / 7 / 7 / 7 - 28

And while Rogue Ops is still often a blast to play, the game’s lack of polish and numerous minor frustrations noticeably hamper the solid, if somewhat derivative, gaming experience that lies underneath.

If you can get around the weaker aspects of the game, Rogue Ops should be a reasonably entertaining experience for stealth fans looking for their next fix.

The creators should look more at UbiSoft's Splinter Cell if they plan on trying again.

The big turn-off contained within Rogue Ops, however, is the control element, and more specifically the focus of Nikki during play. L1 moves into look mode, where your targeting reticule glows green if an item can be used.

The real problem is that you'll feel like you've seen variations of all eight missions somewhere else, and without all the hand-holding to solve the puzzles.

Although technically sufficient, the deliberate pacing and occasional trial-and-error nature may turn some players off.

Rogue Ops is permeated by a distinct lack of polish. The controls are a bit unintuitive, voice acting see-saws from decent to cringe-inducing bad, clipping issues abound..., and textures are blurry.

Graphically, this is the worst looking version among the next-gen consoles, thought it's not really bad at all compared to other PS2 games.

The puzzles suck; they're often obscure to the point of being ridiculous. Key items are frequently out of frame or hard to see, making progress without a cheat sheet nearly impossible.

Besides the poor enemy A.I., the paint-by-numbers gameplay (requiring surgically precise cursor movement for actions like jumping or climbing) makes the action feel canned.

There are several ideas at work which are cool in concept, such as the hand-to-hand combat moves, but the overall effect is not very entertaining.

The designers do fall victim to simply giving you a gadget just to make it past an obstacle seemingly forgetting about the gadget later on. However the imagination here is pretty good making using these toys kind of fun.