On the run and fighting for your life, you are freelance journalist, Matt Carter. Twelve hours after arriving in Moscow for a routine story, you’ve been stripped of all possessions, beaten unconscious, and thrown into the KGB’s political prison. Caught in the midst of an international conspiracy that aims to control the U.S.S.R., you are now on your own behind the “Iron Curtain”. Using only recovered weapons and improvised gadgets, you must now evade and eliminate special Soviet forces and defeat the conspiracy or risk being either killed or sent to a remote Siberian prison camp.

The visuals in Cold War are actually very good for a lower budget production team. With only the exception of cut scenes that are comic style and drawn, rather than going with a better alternative like in-game graphics or god forbid, CG, Cold War has a very strong presentation and will immediately grab gamers’ attention. What you will notice is that there is a great attention to detail in the environments, like blowing trees, rain effects, and those wonderful rag doll physics in not only the backdrops, but enemies as well. Your lead character design isn’t revolutionary, and comes off like your basic “war hero” moniker. Your weaponry and gadgets give-off some nice visual effects, especially the X-ray camera that not only looks impressive, but also is one of the cooler and most useful gadgets in the game. Lastly, Cold War has a very strong engine that uses lighting effects and detailed texture mapping quite well.

Audio passes the test as well with not only a riveting score, strong sound effects, but brilliant voice acting as well. With total use of Dolby Digital sound, the importance of stealth is about not only hearing your surroundings, but not being heard as well. Cold War has a musical score that will get you in the mood and mindset of being back in the mid 1980’s.

Gameplay is very strong in Cold War. You’ll experience tight controls that offer many moves and actions you will need to utilize to be successful on each level. You never have to fight with the camera, but if you do wish to control it, you do have the ability to do so. Need to see around that corner? Now the control is in your hands. The HUD is very useful in not only providing you with vital information about what you’ve picked up or even your health, but a stealth meter shows just how much you are seen by others. The fact that you can loot each body you knock out or kill is a bonus; this is where most of your armor, ammo, and health come from. Combat in the game, whether it is firing a weapon or close range action is very responsive and will give you little trouble when taking out your enemies. Speaking of which, that is the game’s biggest downfall…dumb A.I. Staying “within the rules”, if you stay hidden or are even remotely an accurate shot, the CPU will give you little resistance. In fact, it’s amazing how many shots I fired only a few feet away from an enemy and I was either never heard or the guy just didn’t feel like investigating. Overall, this game is too easy no matter which difficulty level you set it on and is really a walk in Gorky Park.

For $19.99, Cold War gives stealth fans something to do until Snake or Sam come out of hiding. If anything this may be the last stealth/action title on this generation’s Xbox, so soak it up. Even with the laughable A.I., the game is under a twenty spot, and is quite enjoyable if you love stealth, action, and gadgets. If you want the game for the PC on the other hand, it’ll cost you forty dollars, which is a little harder to swallow. Get it for the Xbox.