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 A generic description for
Danger Girl comes down to three words: "Syphon Filter clone."
You can almost hear N-Space, the developers, working on the game's
design. Syphon
Filter is a great game so why not capitalize on its success and
established game play? One notable feature of Metal Gear Solid is the
radar function with “sight cones” so why not add a similar feature
in Danger Girl? Say, those quick time action sequences in games like
Die Hard Arcade and Shenmue are swell so why not throw in a few of
those during cut scenes? It sounds like Danger Girl could be a
real sleeper hit with features from some notable and popular titles
thrown in, but it’s all for nothing. The only question remains,
"What went
wrong?"
Danger Girl's
plot is a fairly over-used one. We’re not talking
about kidnapped princesses but rather a powerful artifact that can
give the bad guys the power to destroy the world. Abbey Chase, Sydney
Savage and the newest member of the Danger Girl team, J.C., are all sent on different
missions to prevent this artifact and its fuel types from getting into the wrong hands.
First, it’s a simple investigation of illegal
artifact dealer, Donovan Conrad, but later it’s discovered that the
terrorist group, The Hammer, is involved as well. By using their skills
in firearms and espionage, the Danger Girls plan to put a stop to The
Hammer despite facing an army of bad guys. Hopefully, they won’t
break a nail in the process.
The
graphics in Danger Girl are pretty crummy. This is a game that looks
like a first generation title instead of one that was released five
years after the PlayStation's launch. The textures are generic and
uninspired; the frame rate is
choppy most of the time; and everything looks like it’s made with
just a few polygons. This may sound like a joke but the only thing that
doesn’t have a sharp angle is the posterior of the girls themselves.
This is a stark contrast to Spider-Man, which is another recent comic-based video game released this year.
The textures in Spider-Man look
colorful and vibrant and the engine doesn’t stutter under stress.
Spider-Man looks like a comic book in 3D, while Danger Girl does not.
The PlayStation might be showing its age, but it’s certainly capable
of doing better than Danger Girl.
 Like
the graphics, the sound effects and music seem to be mediocre and
dull. All the guns sound too similar and the music tends to be of the
looping drum beat type. The voice acting isn’t too shabby, although
there are a few tiny problems. Abbey Chase and Valerie seem to have
the best voices but Sydney Savage and the leader of Danger Girl, Deuce,
seem to suffer through their accents. Sydney’s accent seems to be on-and-off most of the time and Deuce sounds like a bad Sean Connery
knock-off.
Unfortunately, the
gameplay doesn’t fair much better. The core style
seems to be ripped right from 989 Studio’s Syphon Filter. Aside from
the obligatory run, turn and strife controls, it also features a sneak
button like Syphon Filter as well as an aim button so you can
fine-tune shots. The jumping animation looks identical to Lara Croft
in Tomb Raider. Not just similar, it's identical. There is also an action
button that opens doors, activates controls, uses items, etc.
The
problem is that the controls are not as intuitive as Syphon
Filter nor are they as responsive. Turning is painfully slow and using
the aiming button is even slower. The game gives you an option of
having “fast” or “slow” aiming but in reality they should have
been labeled, “too fast” and “too slow”. To make this
situation worse, the crosshairs wander to simulate fatigue. As if
it’s not hard enough lining up a shot with a painfully slow
crosshair, it also drifts to make it that much more difficult. The
developers also felt the need to make the aim and sneak buttons
toggled instead of a function that you have to hold down. This becomes
a problem when you’re discovered after doing some sniping. Generally,
you’ll lose about a forth or even half your health trying to run
away in sneak mode forgetting to toggle it off after having toggled
the aim mode off as well. Instead of letting go of two buttons to run
away, you’re left with switching off two functions while your
enemies are taking easy shots. Of course, you don’t have to sneak up
on enemies and snipe them. You can always run around and blast away
like a maniac but even this is troublesome to do. N-Space included an
auto-aim feature, which highlights enemies within your sights and
allows your character to shoot in that direction without having to use
the aim function. Sounds like a swell idea but even that doesn’t
work quite right. Even if the target is at point blank range, it
always takes at least three shots to gun them down. About the only weapon
that is of any use at such a close range is the shotgun. To put this mildly, these girls don’t control like the highly
trained espionage spies they are but more like pregnant cows.
 One
thing that is notable about Danger Girl is that N-Space added a radar
feature which is easily recognizable as being the same one in Metal
Gear Solid. Enemies appear as dots with sight cones that give you an
indication of which direction they are currently looking. It also
changes color based on their alertness on a situation. It sounds like a
nice addition, but it doesn’t do all that much to help. Shoot a guard in
one room and the other guards instantly know which direction you are,
regardless if you’re in their sight or not. Unlike Metal Gear
Solid,
if you make a sound they don’t search for the source but instantly
know where you are even if you’ve found a nice cozy sniping spot.
This creates problems when guards are around corners since they can
often shoot you with pin-point accuracy while your auto-aim function
proceeds to shoot at the wall.
The
only thing that N-Space seemed to copy from another game and that actually works right is the
playable cut scenes idea. Similar to games like Space Ace or the more
recent Die Hard Arcade, there are portions where instead of having
direct control of the character, a series of button icons will appear
at the bottom of the screen. Pressing the buttons within a set time
period allows your character to escape situations such as a guard
jumping through a window, navigating a laser field and escaping mad
doctors. The only real problem is that although this portion of the
game is incredibly fun and works perfectly, there are only three parts of the game in which they occur. Yes, possibly the
only part of Danger Girl that isn’t frustrating and is quite fun
only appears three times in the entire game. What a complete waste.
Danger
Girl isn’t the worst game I’ve played but it seems to be the only
one that has so much potential and misses on every count. Just about
every aspect of Danger Girl borders on being generic and the controls are
incredibly frustrating and slow. To add insult to injury, completing
the game opens up a cheat menu that requires you to find cheats in the
various levels. One of these cheats is called "Head Shot
Mode" and it changes the crosshairs into a box when aimed at an enemy’s
head. Why isn't this in the
regular game?  I can
only imagine what a little fine-tuning could have done to help this
game. As it is however, it’s a game to avoid buying and I can only
recommend renting it only if you’re dying for some semi-Syphon
Filter action. If there ever is a Danger Girl sequel, I can only hope
that N-Space puts a little more effort into it. The
Danger Girl license just isn’t enough to save this one.
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