The Plan – Review

“When the mafia hired Stephen Foster and Robert Taylor, the world’s greatest thieves, to steal two famous paintings, it should’ve been a simple job. When greed got the best of Foster, the ruthless turncoat sacrificed his partner and crew for the chance to collect the payoff all for himself. Now, five year’s later, Taylor’s day of redemption has come. The ultimate heist will require a team of specialists, the most sophisticated gear, and a watertight plan… The Plan.”

Beyond its obvious stealthy longings, the stylistic temptation of The Plan mainly exists through its brave usage of multiple playable on-screen characters in separate but simultaneous gameplay windows that can be accessed by the player at any time. Naturally, given this approach, the separate on-screen team members must work together to successfully pull-off the above-mentioned heist via character-specific strengths and special moves. By so doing the team can obtain valuable blueprints, steal precious diamonds and replace them with forgeries, and even break free from prison, all of which can (supposedly) be done while never even arousing the suspicions of attending enemies. Sounds thoroughly intriguing, eh?

However, in reality, The Plan falls some way short of achieving any sort of claustrophobic tension via stealth, precise timing, and cunning strategy, which is what it sells itself on. Instead, players will find themselves forced to use the multiple character aspect for mundane purposes that quickly shatter the game’s ambitious reach. For example, one team member will be tasked with pressing a button for long enough so that another can successfully slip through a remote hatchway; or two team members will need to perform synchronized door opening, or one team member will distract a guard through casual conversation while another team member silently passes by unnoticed. Considering the team are supposed to be ‘top of their field’, the actual in-game interaction is relatively shallow and unrewarding, and almost always fails to conjure up any genuine player excitement.

More worryingly, The Plan offers up no tangible thrills to entice the player to push on throughout the somewhat tedious multiple-character component. This is compounded by the inclusion of the now ‘par-for-the-genre’ coned vision for all NPCs. Simply avoiding their limited 45-degree span of vision will see the player safely through each mission—regardless of time of day, environment, etc., if a member of your team is not within a guard’s simplistic compass point vision, they will never be seen. Dumb. Seeing as though this is an aspect (better) used in so many stealth games of the past, its implementation translates as rather disappointing on Ghostlight’s part, and it’s certainly not an element that holds any form of lasting challenge. Other stealthy aspects, such as avoiding invisible laser security beams, offer nothing out of the ordinary either; players in The Plan need not incapacitate and lug ‘micro-chipped’ guards on their shoulder to pass through laser-riddled rooms and corridors (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory). No, nothing so inventive is on show here; simply donning a pair of ‘special’ spectacles suddenly reveals the positioning of all the offending lasers. How easy. How plainly dull.

Aside from the stifling of fun experienced through the gameplay, The Plan also happens to be a fairly unimpressive performer aesthetically. The visuals are instantly bland and off-putting; to the degree where the PlayStation 2 seems far too advanced to be playing host to such an obvious underachiever. The grey and greying PSone certainly wouldn’t struggle to deal with The Plan—though it perhaps might not want to, and for very good reason. Another nail in the overall coffin arises via the character dialogue, which obviously flew through The Plan’s Q&A sessions with the sound turned down, because it constantly—and annoyingly—cuts in and out of proceedings. That said, it may come as a blessing in disguise to some gamers seeing as the in-game vocal performances are so utterly unconvincing that the dialogue’s sudden departure is almost a welcome reprieve from the aural agony.

Deaf gamers are, of course, spared the fractured delivery of the game’s poor performances, but can still follow The Plan’s unfolding narrative in its entirety thanks to full (though not always accurate) on-screen dialogue subtitles. All other gamers will also swiftly find themselves relying on the text subtitles once the glitch-riddled vocals start to cut out—which first happens about 2 minutes into the game proper.

The game’s 7 playable characters, The Mind, The Wall, Poker, Boomer, Headshot, Geek, and Cat all have specific special abilities (it’s not hard to discern what they are from their names), and Cat and Headshot are both female, which may well make character-starved girl gamers a little happier. Yet, that’s only likely to be true if (in the case of Cat) those girl gamers are thoroughly appeased by the portrayal of dolt female characters who seem more interested in flirting with male team members and obsessing over personal appearance than they do with the inherent perils of attempting a massively dangerous heist. Another poor choice by Ghostlight and Monte Cristo that will probably only further alienate The Plan’s applicable demographic.

The Plan walks a fine line in the retail world, one that differentiates the expectations of certain releases thanks to their reduced price point. At a mere 29,99 The Plan finds itself bordering the hard shoulder of ‘budget title’, yet, to be frank, it barely qualifies for the label—especially as the budget catalog contains some surprising strong games. The Plan duly finds itself occupying a limbo niche for both retailer and consumer. It flatly does not belong in the top tier of videogame releases and is all-but an insult to the genre it’s poorly emulating, but, by that token, its reduced pricing seemingly exists as an excuse for hollow gameplay, shoddy graphics, atrocious characterizations, dumb A.I., and floundering ambition. Done correctly, The Plan could have been a truly interesting videogame that expanded on the stealth genre’s strong foundations. As it is, The Plan qualifies as little more than Splintered Hell, and Metal Gear Horrid. Avoid.

Review by Stevie

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