POSTED 8/3/11


MINDJACK

Square Enix
PS3 (also on Xbox 360)

It’s 2031. As covert government music video director Anton Corbijn, your mission is to intercept terrorists then film them in black and white.

Well duh, no it isn’t, but it’s an interesting concept – which leads us properly to Mindjack, which could have “an interesting concept” as its epitaph.
 
The big thing in this third-person mindfuck ’em up is the ability for the lead – Jim Corbijn (we weren’t being completely random) - to hack into others, be they man or machine. Or Man-Machine if you happen upon Kraftwerk. About to cark it? Take over your pal! Got a foe on his knees? Bonce hack and convert him to your cause! It’s quite ‘the Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded’ and, to use that ‘c’ word again, the concept’s way cool.

In single-player you can even elect to have AI players open to hacking from real world players to add a bit of “challenge” (that’s one word for it), whereas in multiplayer it’s open season on others’ synapses. Awesomeness! Unfortunately, however, something fritzed out somewhere between conceptualisation and realisation.

Mindjack’s essentially a cover-based shooter, for which precise control is needed. When you combine a right stick that’s a bitch (and has no sensitivity tweakingness), limited weapon-oomph and quite the reliance upon headshots to make headway, you’ve a problem. Sure you can try fisticuffs, but you’ll likely go x-eyed in a hail of lead whilst doing so. Poo! Often moronic AI doesn’t help, and Mindjack sure ain’t no looker.

Combining fragments of Blade Runner, The Matrix, Tron, Minority Report, Robocop and Bambi – well, five of them - we can’t reiterate enough how ace Mindjack’s mind-hacking idea is. But, despite multiplayer shining brighter, ultimately you won’t want to play these mind games for hours, let alone forever...

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