Things begin rather well, after a small cut scene you take control of the interceptor as it is being chased by all manner of vehicles and helicopters. From here the game basically introduces you to all the controls of the interceptor. After evading all of the vehicles an FMV plays and the interceptor is stolen by NOSTRA. The game picks up a year after the theft, you take control of Alex Decker, who is played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Alex Decker works for the International Espionage Service and it is his job to get the interceptor back. After you take control it’s a little bit hard not to be disappointed because we were expecting to control a super fast vehicle, not take control of Alex Decker. Up until now the Spy Hunter franchise has focused solely on the driving, so it’s a bit of a radical change for Nowhere to Run to focus so heavily on third person generic run and gun game play.
Generic Action Game #3098
The first mission serves as a basic tutorial to the 3rd person elements of the game. Every mission contains primary objectives and secondary objectives. Alex is actually rather nimble and athletic and he can crouch and roll. You can only hold two weapons at a time, so when picking weapons up off dead enemies you need to decide which ones to keep. If you don’t have any weapons at all then you can use some WWE inspired moves to grapple or smack down your opponent. There are also finishing moves which are easy to execute and they are probably a little too effective, a lot of the time the finishing moves can make it a little too easy to kill enemies.
It becomes abundantly clear as you play through the levels that the game play never really varies. All you have to do is go through a relatively linear environment attempting to kill as many enemies as possible. Ultimately the game never becomes all that challenging, and Alex even regenerates health if he can avoid being shot at for long enough. It just feels as if Midway rushed through the implementation of the third person game play because the controls can be slow and unresponsive and overall the game just feels dull.
When you actually get an opportunity to drive with the interceptor it feels good to be back in the drivers seat, driving with the interceptor is definitely the highlight but the handling can feel a little bit slippery at times, this was something we didn’t recognize in the two predecessors. The interceptor actually has a few upgrades now, for example the vehicle now has tyre spikes which was something typically reserved for the enemies in the other games. It’s disappointing that the sections with the interceptor aren’t a lot more frequent.
WWE gone bad?
Visually Midway appear to have just fulfilled the minimum standard, as such the game doesn’t even look better than the first remake which was released half a decade ago for the PlayStation 2. Alex Decker looks pretty similar to the Rock, but at times the cut-scenes make him look more like Lego. The rest of the visuals aren’t all that impressive either, the cut-scenes feel like they’ve been put together in a night and the game features low textures. The environments haven’t had much effort put into them at all so they’re dark and dull and not very varied at all. This is definitely a game for the audiophiles as there are sounds of explosions and guns all throughout the game. The voice acting from the Rock is surprisingly solid as well.
Completing the game from start to finish will take less than a day and the game never really puts up much of a fight. If you look hard enough then the original Spy Hunter game is actually hidden on an arcade machine in one of the levels, playing it will unlock it for infinite use. There are also a few unlockables but none of them are exactly exciting. Once you’ve completed the single player campaign there is no real reason to come back to the game considering there is no multiplayer support at all.
As you can tell from the screenshots there isn't much of the Interceptor in the game at all.
Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run is an uninspired game, Midway tried to turn the franchise into something it clearly isn’t and as such the game ends up being boring and generic. The game does nothing to set itself aside from the countless other generic third person action title so it’s likely everyone will forget about the game in only a few weeks, the inclusion of The Rock isn’t the saving grace that Midway appear to have been banking on. With no movie to tie the game to either it just feels like this game was rushed out as soon as it was discovered that the movie may not materialize, a few third person action segments may have been acceptable, but it's changed the concept of the Spy Hunter franchise far too much that it doesn’t even feel like a Spy Hunter game. You really have to enjoy the Rock and action shooters to get even the tiniest amount of enjoyment of the game.
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