Jack Bauer has managed to get quite the reputation for himself. In 96 hours he's managed to save the world four times and be legally dead more than once, yet he still keeps coming back for more. Let's face it: he's a total badass, in every sense of the word. When it was announced that 24 was coming to the PS2, it sounded like a pretty cool concept. When I played a preview build last year, it seemed to have a lot of potential. Sadly, this turns out not be the case with the final version of the game.

24: The Game does manage to capture the spirit of the show rather faithfully, complete with a riveting storyline that certainly does the show justice, and it also manages to convey the information almost exactly as the show would. We catch up with Jack at 6 a.m. as he's leading a team of CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) agents into a warehouse to try to prevent a lethal toxin from being released on Los Angeles.


From there, mainstays of the show turn up in the storyline to good effect -- a government official in danger, crazy terrorists trying to bring the country to its knees, big shootouts, Jack using his mad stealth skills, and of course, Kim Bauer faces mortal danger (but at least she's not being hunted by a cougar). On top of that, you're actually able to play as some of these characters -- no, you don't get to play as Jack through the entire game, but it makes sense to see other parts of the story through different sets of eyes.

The multi-perspective windows that come up during commercial breaks and scene changes are put to good use here during the gameplay, showing multiple angles of a given objective, with one on you and another to show you what's around the corner. Despite the fact that it certainly is a slick feature, it can still be a bit disorienting trying to control your character while looking at a completely different angle that you might not even appear in. A really nice touch is that the screen that appears at the start of every 24 episode is in place in the game at the start of every new hour, with Keifer Sutherland saying "The following takes place between X and Y o'clock." All in all, the game manages to capture the look and feel of the show well.