The backgrounds look blurry, blocky and two dimensional, and there simply isn't much detail in anything. This serves to raise the question, "How did it get so butt-ugly?" Okay, okay, I'm being a little harsh, as the game isn't downright ugly so much as it is extremely dated. Since Nina never appears in any of the game's few cutscenes, the only times you actually SEE her (usually dressed in fatigues) is in static images during level loads, a tiny icon by the health meter, and briefly after dying (which admittedly, you'll be doing a LOT).Ĭodename: Nina is based on the renowned LithTech Talon engine - the same one that powered other titles like Aliens vs. Codename: Nina was originally designed to be a third-person game, but during production, that idea was scrapped in favor of the first-person perspective. Unfortunately, the effort ended up being largely wasted as a selling point anyway. While Detalion certainly isn't the first (nor will they be the last) to use an attractive female lead in a game, they at least earn recognition for choosing a model that isn't the stereotypical top-heavy freak of nature like other more notable game heroines. Nina herself is portrayed by Polish model Iza Czarnecka. The only real feature that distinguishes this game from countless other generic shooters is Nina's psychic ability to control minds, which she'll be called upon to do periodically throughout the game. Anyone who has played a shooter of any kind will find no surprises in interface, controls, items, or objectives. The developers fully intended to make the game accessible to casual players, and they've succeeded so far as the basic mechanics of the game are concerned. Gameplay is traditional FPS fare, but simplified more than most. Believe me when I say I'm giving nothing away by telling you this - the story does little (and by "little" I mean "nothing") more than serve as a backdrop for introducing the game and mission locations. Over the course of three multi-leveled missions, Nina's assignments are to destroy a bio-chemical weapon in the Far East, then track down the conspirators in one of the Soviet republics and on into the ancient ruins of a South American jungle. The game's heroine is a field agent of a secret, international anti-terrorist organization. Since Nina is a "strike force" of one, anyway, we'll just go with Codename: Nina for short. Still, that would be easy to overlook if not for the fact that the title is now completely unmanageable and forgettable. I can only assume the purpose of this was to get the "terrorism" reference into the game name, which seems rather blatantly opportunistic. Not only does Nina dispatch global terrorists during her missions, she also extracts counter intelligence from them with her paranormal abilities.Įntitled Nina: Agent Chronicles in Europe and published by City Interactive, the game has been renamed and brought to North America by ValuSoft as a "budget" title called Codename: Nina - Global Terrorism Strike Force. The appearance of Nina, the Lara Croft/James Bond-like heroine, is patterned after the striking features of top Polish model Izabela Czarnecka. This one-woman army, an unequaled tour de force in the world of global policing, works through nine missions in places like South America, the Ukraine, and the Middle East, visiting diverse locales such as a Taliban village in Afghanistan and ancient temples and ruins in a tropical forest.Ĭodename: Nina - Global Terrorism Strike Force, released as Nina: Agent Chronicles in Europe, is powered by the Lithtech Talon game engine. Polish developer CITY Interactive, formerly known as Lemon Interactive, puts players in the role of secret agent Nina, a counter-terrorism expert with extrasensory psychic ability, who travels the world infiltrating, eliminating, dominating, and assassinating nasty global threats.