Mindjack

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List Price: $19.99
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Imagine a world where you can't die, and only your body can. You are a computerized entity capable of "hacking" into the minds of enemies, controlling them and turning battles in your favor by catching squads of your foes off guard. But, imagine that you can only do this once your host shoots an enemy enough times, is close enough to said enemy, and whose aiming abilities make Shadow the Hedgehog look like Master Chief. Such is the world of the painfully generic MindJack.

Story: D-

To illustrate how important plot is to this game, let me first tell you that MindJack allows players to interrupt your campaign at anytime by "hacking in." This means that your quasi-successful run of a level could, in theory, be ruined by some idiot who doesn't know his rear end from his elbow. Before you ask, YES, that is indicative of how urgent this game's "story" is. From what I gathered, it's about some super-amazing secret agent assigned to escort some woman who has some kind of special ability and a passing resemblance to a loved one, and he's supposed to do... something. Honestly, I stopped paying attention, because the voice acting and dialogue was so pathetic that I stared at the ceiling to keep myself from getting bored. Yes, my dull white ceiling was more engaging than this game's plot.

Gameplay: D

This game is a perfect example of how a brilliant concept can fail miserably if executed wrong. And trust me, it can't get much more wrong than this. The bland, last generation gameplay might be forgivable if FeelPlus had taken the game's main concept a little more seriously and turned it into a compelling element of battle. Instead, they turn it into a sluggish hassle that gives you little motivation to use it, which isn't good considered it's technically the only way to survive throughout the game. Other small things, such as your character walking at a snail's pace outside of battle, and the camera shifting down to the ground whenever you pick up a weapon, become nuisances which further mar what could've been such a great experience. And I refuse to comment on the slapped-on level system, simply because it seems to serve barely any purpose.

Graphics/Sound: They're Bad

Normally, I split the graphics and sound into two more sections and give them their respective grades. In this case, however, I'm willing to make an exception and just be honest: these are both the most laughable aspects of the game. Bland graphics with jagged edges galore are accompanied by the most generic soundtrack this side of a Saturday Night SyFy Original Movie. Problems are worsened to a further degree by the laughable cutscenes, which have some of the worst voice acting since Resident Evil in 1996. It's really sad that a game like this, with a pretty large company putting it out, can scrape by with such dreadful post-production values. Actually, it's not sad: it's embarrassing. Deeply, trulyembarrassing.

Overall: F+

A cool concept, I will admit. If this had been prepped a little more, we would've had a grade-A game on our hands. Instead, we get a rushed piece of junk that will be in the bargain bin faster than the sound of your controller dropping onto the ground as you fall asleep playing this game. And to answer your question, yes, this game made me fall asleep in the middle of a fire fight. So please. Don't let your post-school or after work gaming session turn into a nap. I strongly urge you to play something better, or even replaying a game that you know like the back of your hand. MindJack is a special kind of horrid; it's painfully familiar and dull, and with today's options in the gaming world, there's no reason to spend 60 bucks, or any amount of money, on something like this.

EDIT (7/2/13): A weird time to edit a review, I know, but I had to bump down my score a bit. It remains at a one star for me, but the D+ is now an F+.

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Save your self and your money, buy a different game this title is full of bugs, it's slow and confusing the game-play + the story is total crap it's like it was thrown together in a box and they shock it in tell it resembled something that looks like a game and said "walla" lets sell it.

Save your self... Don't wast precise brain cells i beg you!

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MindJack got a lot of grief when it came out, and it hasn't gotten much better. However, seeing it for under $5 one day, I decided to pick up a copy and see just how bad it really is.

MindJack tells the story of a man who's name I can't remember (and that I don't care enough to look up) as he tries to discover what he can, as within the first few minutes of the game he's treated as something of a traitor.

The voice work is pretty horrible at times, so expect to groan.

The mind hacking taking over the bodies of friendlies or neutrals is similar to The 3rd Birthday, with the exception of a pretty poor AI (although left alone for long enough they do a somewhat passable job most of the time) and you won't hear Aya's exclamations of ... whatever. This hijacking requires line of sight, however there also seems to be some percentage of body seen, in order for it to consistently work.

The game is mostly a third-person shooter, with a rather faulty hand-to-hand combat system (although taking someone as a shield seems to work fairly well).

All that said, it's about an eight hour game. However, I've put a little over 20 hours of time into the game. And it's for the same reason I'm going to give the game 4 stars.

The game allows you to play through by yourself, or like Demon's Souls (I apologize if anyone cringes my mention of that in regards to this game), blue or red hackers can jump in. Blue hackers can use any friendlies (and since you consistently have a partner through the game, at least one could play through with you), while red hackers can use any enemies. Red hackers can certainly have an easier time, since there are more enemies than friendlies at the start, but they're unable to jump into most bosses.

You can shut this off if you want, but the real enjoyment of this game comes through in the multiplayer.

Unfortunately there's not too many people playing the game (I'd say maybe a dozen at the time of this review), yet on the other hand they tend to be people that also just picked up the game, making it a fairly 'tight' group of people. In fact, thanks to MindJack I found someone who I'll be keeping an eye on, since we have very similar gaming tastes.

Had the online component not been active I would have given this game 3 stars. However, because of the great community, and the fun I had because of it, I'm giving MindJack 4 of 5 stars. It's certainly not one of their better games, but at $10 or less, it's worth the price, in my opinion.

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the idea of the game is pretty cool but the game itself is a lil on the odd side...the graphics are pretty cool but the plot is rather cheesy if not downright retarded at times

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They ought to call this WalletJack.

Hard to believe Square Enix could release this in 2011 with a straight face; it looks like a weak game from a decade ago in most every way. The graphics are mediocre, the gameplay sluggish and almost entirely lacking in fun, and the concept of excitement seems to have been lost somewhere. Maybe some other, much finer game company hacked into the Mindjack developers' minds and made them create the most boring, pointless game of the past few years (or more)?

When you walk around, you barely crawl. Hmmm, I must be missing something here...how to make this guy move and keep me awake. I kept hitting L1, L2, then R1, then R2, then my head for renting this joke of a game. If I can save even one person from buying this I will have successfully completed the real task of this game: keeping other fans of intelligent games miles away from ever wasting their time on it.

Elias' review here is perfect and goes into more depth as to why this game sucks. No need to rehash that, just to say: don't waste your time. Aside from the basic idea of hacking into other peoples' minds, there is nothing here, and that concept is treated so shabbily and without imagination as to beg the question: why did this game get released, and what were they thinking when they played it themselves? Did they honestly think this was worth shipping? Have they never seen the Uncharted games, which, though years old now, make this look like Asteroids or Space Invaders, without the fun?

Mindjack is a complete and utter waste of time, and maybe the single most boring video game I've ever played...since Pong.