In Cold Blood (PC) Review

Agent Cord is sent into enemy territory to retrieve a friendly agent from the hands of the enemy nation, Volgia. When he gets there, he finds out that it is too late to save his friend, but stumbles upon knowledge about the state and its military powers, information beyond what he could have ever expected.

The setup is perfect for a spy thriller and offers a lot of tension, action, and a sense of urgency throughout. While being made way back in the year 2000, the graphics and special effects are extremely well-made for the time, offering a great aesthetic experience, highlighting the environments, and giving off a natural feeling of replicating actual real-life locations rather than merely being parts of a game map.

There are some pretty obvious flaws in here, though, ones that have been exacerbated over time. The biggest, and most apparent, one is the control system, which is based on an ancient 3D control and camera mode that was slightly common before (and for a while after, actually) titles such as Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time set the new standard.

The game is controlled by pressing the up key to move upwards, the down key to move backwards, plus the left and right keys to turn the character around on the spot, with no other way to carrying out any of these manoeuvres. Anyone that has ever played an old 3D adventure game or a WoW-esque MMORPG knows how useless this control scheme is on its own, hence why there is the possibility to adjust the camera for a quick turn. However, that option does not exist within the settings of In Cold Blood, so the player is required to key-turn, without the camera following them when doing so.

This wouldn't have been such a problem if it didn't take an extremely long time to turn. When standing still, it takes somewhere between two-to-three seconds to turn 180 degrees, while walking takes somewhere around five and two-to-three seconds when running. This is unacceptable while being hunted or doing something that is timed, and becomes frustrating. However, that isn't the only thing about In Cold Blood that is slow…

Overall, when exploring new areas, players are going to want to walk to not draw guards' attention by making sounds. This might seem like a good mechanic, but the issue is that the walking pace on the whole is too laboured, and the running isn't that much faster, either. While it gives a sense of realism, it certainly isn't enjoyable. The pace never changes, no matter what is done, and this mixed with sometimes inaccurate action-taking that might force the character to walk across the screen towards the wrong switch or door when trying to open it makes this very painful to watch.

In other words, In Cold Blood is a product of its time, showing its limitations more today. It put all of its focus on graphical development, which created gameplay that, while acceptable when released, hasn't aged well at all. In between slow controls and sometimes inaccurate actions, the age of the title is painfully apparent. This is extremely sad as underneath all of that hides a good story and a title that is well worth to play through thanks to the tension the story invokes.