PlayStation 2

Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter

This is a good first-person shooter. The storyline maybe a bit familiar, but the new settings and the way Rollins expresses himself all add up to a very enjoyable time. Mace Griffin sports all the features of the very good FPS titles, and deserves a good long look.

Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter is an entertaining story-driven FPS with a sweet secondary shooting sequence, although the PS2 version's performance hit is a drag. The lack of secrets and multiplayer modes also means an utter lack of replay value, but I felt nothing but satisfaction at the rousing conclusion.

Despite being a rough composite of a half dozen other first-person shooters without much personality of its own, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter is still pretty good. The action can be fast-paced and engaging, and if you can forgive the game's derivative nature, there's an entertaining experience to be had here.

Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter is kind of a take-it-or-leave-it game. Fans of the first-person shooter genre might want to add it to their to-do lists. Some of the environments and enemies are worth seeing, and the game is definitely playable, even if there aren't enough save points.

I get highly annoyed when companys try to capitalize on a market instead of bringing something new or original and trying to expand an already over populated genre...

Overall, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter is a good space-based FPS. Granted it has its problems but if you can overlook some of them you will have the opportunity to play a decent game. The control problems and lagging keep the gamer from getting immersed in the title, but the concept of the game has a lot of potential for improvement.

Mace Griffin had a lot of promise. But none of those promises, aside from some really nice looking guns and lots of bloodshed, panned out. Going from ground combat to space combat in a seamless transition is a cool idea, but because of some limited creative design and occasionally lackluster execution, Mace's one advantage over other FPS' has gone to waste.

Mace Griffin is, in the end, just sort of there. It's a messy blend of other games—Halo, a little Max Payne, an occasional bit of Medal of Honor: Frontline—and seems designed from the ground up to make you wish you were playing those games. The one unique thing it brings to the table, the space combat, is really just more FPS in a new suit. Mace Griffin takes derivative first-person shooters to a new height, or maybe depth, and I can't honestly recommend it to anyone unless I'm being mean.