Action Man: Mission Extreme | PS1 Review
Publisher: Hasbro Interactive
Developer: Blitz Games Studios
Platforms: PS1
hen it comes to the Playstation 1, there is a hero that many have said is the greatest of them all...no it’s not Cloud Strife you weebs. Action Man! The range of action figures peaked in popularity in the 90s when Hasbro modernised its design compared to the British Army stylings of the original to be more in line with it’s American parallel G.I. Joe and introduced the quirky arch-villains DR X and Professor Gangrene. Well, we all know what popular 90s franchises get: video games! On the Playstation we have 2, Operation Extreme from 1999 and Destruction X from 2000, let’s take a look at the first of them and see if it’s worth playing…
When I first played this as a kid there was unfortunately a huge barrier to entry that prevented me from experiencing the whole game for what was probably years after release. The first level in Action Man: Operation Extreme is a completely different gameplay style from the majority of the game, a top down driver/shooter with insanely loose tank controls and the ability to shoot forwards and only forwards. Couple this with a camera that is far too zoomed in to allow for normal navigation, because you’d be better off just looking at the radar the whole time, and claustrophobic level design that punishes speed, and that makes this one of the toughest first levels of a game made for kids in history.
The objective is to destroy all of the enemy cars which will be roaming around the city dropping damaging purple goop on the road and spraying you with...piss? Well, poison gas maybe. As you can only shoot forwards you will need to be on the enemies’ arse like Richard Branson on a private NHS contract but because the map is so small with no long stretches of road, you will often find the enemy pulling a 180 to end up behind you while you struggle awkwardly to turn round and catch them up.
Once you manage to pick off the enemies you are tasked with collecting spinning emblems around the map called power points which will then enable you to access a more powerful vehicle from your base in order to defeat the boss...well, the game acts as if the vehicle is more powerful at least. It actually seems to handle exactly the same and just looks beefier. There's also a smaller vehicle which allows you to squeeze between buildings to collect some of the more hidden power points if you're a completionist.
There are 3 levels including this one throughout the game that play out pretty much exactly this way and although these levels have grown on me now I understand the controls and simplistic enemy AI patterns, the biggest misstep here is that they paint a horrible first impression of a game that couldn't be further from its initial showing in the following gameplay segments.
Before getting to that, let me take a moment to explain the story of Action Man: Mission Extreme...because a moment is all it will take. Action Man's nemesises…nemesii…nemesie?…are developing toxic weapons, planting bombs and just causing general havoc. Action Man decides to sneak into DR X's secret base (the location of which he is already aware for plot convenience) to discover the baddies are also creating sentient poisonous plants, patrolling robot minions and storing a healthy amount of red explosive barrels in various warehouses. Action Man uses his plethora of secret agent gadgets to sabotage the base and kill (I mean “capture”) DR X and his minions. That is genuinely all there is to know about the story, it’s camp, predictable and shallow, but in that nostalgic PS1 era “I’ll forgive it if it’s a good game” sort of way.
After successfully passing the first level on your billionth attempt, things take a very Metal Gear Solid-esque turn. In fact, I am fairly convinced that the team behind Operation Extreme took a lot of inspiration from the smash hit stealth espionage action game released just a year prior. I thought it would be prudent to catalogue all of the similarities, just in case Hasboro was itching to throw some defamation lawsuits about:
Scuba diving to infiltrate a base, infrared goggles, avoiding electrified floors, avoiding security cameras and spotlights, a hind D?! Climbing up a rope to access a communications tower, hiding in a box to get transported to another location, hiding in a box on a conveyor belt (hey, that one’s from MGS2) planting C4 to blow shit up, the item and weapon menus are extremely similar, sniper battle! Finding keycards to open doors, using a gas mask in gas filled rooms and taking pictures of stuff to uncover a conspiracy. (Also from MGS2, my god, who copied who?!)
As compared to Metal Gear Solid though, this is a much simpler action adventure game. Each enemy will go down without much of a fight and with a few generously auto aimed shots of your starting pistol. Most of the fun comes from exploring the base, solving quick puzzles such as a ‘Simon says’ hacking minigame, or some light platforming. Action Man might have to jump across shipping containers or swim quickly through a drainage area in the moments where a turbine stops moving, pushing anyone back who attempts it. A lot more could have been done to improve on the game’s level design, because it is too linear and often too obvious as to what the player needs to do. A more open and intertwined layout of the base would have worked wonders and given rise to more interesting gameplay opportunities.
On a similar note, throughout the game I really enjoyed the variety and amount of items and weapons on offer but there is another huge flaw with how the developers chose to implement this, especially compared to the glaringly similar gadgets found in Metal Gear Solid. Most of these are either given to the player upon reaching the objective marker shown to you on the map, or outright given to you right before you need to use them. New weapons simply appear in Action Man’s hand at the beginning of each boss fight as if he had them on him the whole time. This leaves no room for the satisfaction of exploring the game world to find these items. To make things worse, your sole codec contact…or radio contact, is absurdly knowledgeable about the enemy base and exactly where Action Man needs to go next. She gives him a new mission briefing statement, in detail, for as little as walking across a room. These mission briefings will interrupt constantly and, though this does seem like it was aimed at children, no child is so dumb that they need the game to hand-hold to this degree!
The boss fights are a particular highlight, though again simplistic, with the aforementioned weapons appearing in your hand giving you no doubt as to how to beat them. The giant plant that is vulnerable to light is probably the best of these, I like how the light gun has a small charging time and you have to hold the light onto the boss for as long as you can in between dodging its vines and projectiles. Another good one is the mech which goes into a downed state, allowing you to turn a valve and flood the room, damaging its circuits beyond repair.
You probably know what I’m going to say about the music, with this being a positive review of a PS1 game. It’s bloody brilliant. A hint of James Bond/Mission Impossible hammers home the secret agent themes of the game. The ice base theme gets a bit too intense for what is meant to be a covert mission, with quick, intrusive snare rolls and brass. It’s also a bit too reminiscent of the boss music which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The island base theme however gets it spot on and is without a doubt one of my favourite video game music pieces out there. I find tracks like this one of the main elements of many PS1 games that make them so memorable beyond the generic scores we have nowadays in games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Mission Extreme has a lot of great ideas (even if a lot of them are copied from Metal Gear Solid) but what strikes me is how the developers went above and beyond in the presentation, to create a video game that says “yep, this is what Action Man is all about.” It definitely won’t challenge you beyond the frustrating controls in the driving missions and most may even find it far too childish and hand holding, but I think this game is definitely worth a playthrough.
Pros:
Perfect secret agent atmosphere.
Super secret agent soundtrack.
Varied secret agent gameplay.
Cons:
Very linear level design.
Paints an awful first impression.
Absurdly easy outside of the driving stages.