Men In Black: Alien Crisis

I didn’t know this game existed until a couple of weeks ago. I did a bit of research and it seemed to be a relatively easy completion and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed for the most part.

Men In Black is a rail-shooter (not a third person shooter) that follows the story of Peter Delacoeur, an art thief who gets caught up with some aliens and a plot for some idiot to try to take over the world/destroy everything. It’s a fairly bland story, the highlight of which is Frank the Pug with his quippy dialogue. Honestly, the story is nothing to write home about – stereotypical, one dimensional characters and no Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones in sight. Bleurgh.

The gameplay confused the fuck out of me after the opening cut scene. You pick up a gun and some aliens are attacking you so my thought was to run to the nearby van and take cover. This was impossible though as I soon realised that my character movements were limited to a very small left and right window. This is an absolute nightmare as the enemies can throw grenades which you seemingly can’t avoid. It ‘s stupid too because after seeing it be thrown and watching it sit there, knowing it’s going to explode, you physically can’t get out of the way.

There are also some really shitty investigation/dialogue sections where you have to talk to people and scan stuff. Talking to people is the questionable bit as you have what seems like a choice over dialogue options... but none of them are actually choices. It’s just going through the motions and in terms of a game that’ primary function is a rail shooter, is totally unnecessary.

The third and final aspect of the game play involves flying car sections and there is something here that I can’t quite get my head round either. The Xbox controller – in fact, most modern gaming controllers – has two analogue sticks designed for use by humans with two hands and two thumbs – one on each hand. Yet for whatever reason, the designers decided that the left stick is pointless and that the car and the targeting for the gun can both be assigned to the right stick. Totally fucking stupid but there you go.

 Achievements – 1,000 Points – 38 Achievements

11 Achievements can be gained from completing the story mode which can take around 3 hours. While playing through story mode you will unlock weapons and abilities that you need to use to unlock further achievements. There is one for each weapon and ability, the most notable being the bubble gun thing. You need to shoot 7 civilians with the bubble gun so you can wipe their memories at the end of the missions.

There are some achievements for getting kills in the car and total kills in general. 900 enemies and 70 bikes to be precise. In the car you, also need to take out three platforms covered in enemies and take out twenty enemies using the rockets on the car.

There are also three achievements for playing the V R Missions in solo mode and you need to get a score of 300,000. I did this first go without trying so it’s not challenging.

The above are all very blah. There are only three achievements worth mentioning for their shittiness. The first is the competitive VR missions. For a start, they make you replay sections of the story. You have to play it in two player split screen and all you have to do is complete the missions. There are twelve of them so it’s repetitive, boring and pointless. All it did was piss me off because I had to get a second controller out to play with no one.

The second is for completing story mode on elite agent. What’s the difference between agent and elite agent you ask? Well, elite agents get all of the weapons unlocked from the beginning of the game and don’t need to watch the cut scenes or dialogue because they’ve seen it all before. That’s right, it’s a difficulty that doesn’t unlock until you’ve completed the game already and it’s actually easier than the first play through. The key word for this review – pointless.

The last one is the biggest pain in the ass. There is one mission in the car where you need to avoid all of these purple mine things. The car’s general controls make this a fucking pain, but it’s essentially trial and error with 3 sections of purple things and no check points. The second bit is a cunt because you have to move the car down and then up, something it is incapable of doing at any kind of pace. The worst thing is though, because of the lack of checkpoints and the fact that this bit isn’t at the beginning of a mission means that you will have to replay through the first section a lot unless you get ridiculously lucky – this caused me to become hateful towards the dialogue so have your mute button handy.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Men in Black is a fairly easy but boring completion with a load of pointless achievements that cause a lot of a repetition. It’s quick despite the double playthrough though so a Gamerscore hunter’s dream, even with that stupid mine dodging achievement.