Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever - IGN (2025)

Back when the original Ecks vs. Sever hit the scene on the Game Boy Advance, it was one of the first First-Person Shooters to arrive on the handheld system. It was a great game, absolutely, but it was admittedly a much more noticable because it was among the rare FPS genre on the Game Boy Advance. The sequel, released to capitalize on the potential success of the film (note the emphasis on "potential"), can't fall back on being "first" anymore...so the novelty of being a First-Person Shooter just isn't there anymore. Good thing the developer didn't depend solely on the ooh-neat factor for the sequel: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever improves on the original game in every way. It's not going to make as large an impact in an already cluttered GBA market this year, but if you still dig portable first-person shooters, Crawfish's follow-up shouldn't be missed.

Features

Two playable characters
24 different missions
Password save
Link cable support for four players (multiple cartridge)
Only for Game Boy Advance

Like the original Ecks vs. Sever released last fall, Ballistic isn't a Doom-style, run-like-a-maniac, blow-everything-up-as-fast-as-you-can action title. Each level is laid out in missions, where players must carefully and cautiously stroll through hazardous areas. Yes, you still have to blow the hell out of pretty much everything, but the mission structures make it a much less maniacal game...especially when you can't kill innocent bystanders. Players assume the role of either Agent Ecks or Agent Sever, but unlike the original, the choice of character in this games means you'll be playing through a drastically different set of missions. Within missions, you'll be able to climb ladders to higher vantage points, as well as use different weapons (like the upgraded sniper weapon) to take out the baddies. A new feature has been added: players can manually aim their weapon by hitting the select button and "unlocking" the crosshair. This ability is handy during the stealth missions when you want to pop a single shot in those annoying cameras that set off the alarms...but you wouldn't necessarily use this feature in the heat of a firefight.

Unfortunately, from the get-go, a horrible design decision was made for the first mission in the Ecks branch: after blasting about five bad guys, the mission seemingly forces you to wander through an absolutely boring and annoying hedgemaze, even though it's just there as a red herring. And for a game that doesn't offer an automapping feature, this hedgemaze secret was just poor planning on the part of Crawfish. I was literally ready to hang up the game after spending literally 45 minutes in this maze and getting absolutely nowhere. I finally decided to grab a sheet of grid paper and map my progress in order to advance further into the game. This, folks, is not the way to wean gamers into enjoying the rest of the adventure. The missions following this awful level are much better laid-out, though...but to introduce players to the Ballistic action by making them wander aimlessly for an hour is just bad planning. And each of the game's 24 different levels offers a mixed bag of difficulty; in some missions you can blow through the action in just a couple of minutes with barely a scrape...in others, you'll find yourself out of commission and restarting more times than you can count.

The game uses an enhanced version of Crawfish's decent raycasting engine used in last year's version of Ecks vs. Sever. Graphically, almost everything as been upgraded: higher resolution wall textures, more varying level designs, more detail on-screen weapons, and more frames of animation in the enemy sprites. The engine still doesn't put textures on any horizontal surface, so you won't see any detail on the floors, ceilings, or tables other than a flat shade of color. The framerate is acceptably smooth 90% of the time...but in some outdoor locations with lots of on-screen characters it does noticably chugs, making it tough to aim accurately. The sound effects have been bumped up something fierce since last year's game: instead of the annoying, weak "piff" sound from the original's pistol, the developer worked in high-quality, explosive, digitized effects that just sound fantastic coming from the GBA's speaker.

And like last year's game, Ballistic features link cable play for four-player deathmatches in different arenas. You'll need a copy of the cartridge for each system involved though...like the original game, the development team didn't get single cartridge multiplayer working for the sequel.

Verdict

True story: I was ready to throw the system against the wall after the first mission in the game. Why the level designers chose to create such an irritating level to get players started is beyond my comprehension...but I recommend that you withstand the frustration of this mission, since the rest of the game is a lot of fun and a satisfying first person shooter on the Game Boy Advance. Don't let the cruddy movie scare you away from this quality GBA title.

Note: The difference in review score between last year's version and Ballistic is a matter of point inflation in the GBA's second generation; even though this game is definitely better than the original Ecks vs. Sever, its impact just isn't as huge, released among the second generation GBA games.