Secret Service: Ultimate Sacrifice
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 The real secret service should erase everyone's knowledge about this game.
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Secret Service: Ultimate Sacrifice (Also known as Secret Service (2008) is a first-person shooter video game developed by Cauldron HQ and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360. The game puts you in the shoes of an elite agent named Pierce, whose task is to eliminate enemies to prevent them from attacking the Capitol and protect President Simon. It was released in North America on November 4, 2008, and was released in Europe on March 13, 2009.
Synopsis
On the day of the Presidential inauguration Secret Service agent Pierce, a member of current President Simon's personal detail, receives a phone call from an unknown caller who goes by the name "Semper"; Latin for "always" or "ever". He warns that the President is in danger and that someone at the top has compromised the Secret Service warning that "tyrants are everywhere".
Shortly thereafter, dozens of hostiles, although dressed like civilians, are all armed with AKs and speak Spanish, attack the Lincoln Memorial where President Simon is shot. After taking down several RPGs, President Simon is extracted to Walter Reed Medical Center.
Then reports of bombs planted in the Capitol building with over one hundred civilians trapped in the cross fire. Agent Pierce enters while another agent, Doyle, provides updates on situation. After Pierce disarms bombs the bomb squad is killed when they enter the building. He rescues a group of senators and questions the Speaker of the House about the vice president-elect, and learns that the president-elect and vice president-elect were political enemies.
Why It Didn’t Make The Ultimate Sacrifice
- For starters, the story is nothing to write home about.
- As mentioned above, you play an bodyguard named Pierce who has to protect President Simon and stop the angry protesters from attacking the capitol building, that's it.
- The graphics look subpar, other games from 2008 like Battlefield: Bad Company looks better than this.
- Just like The History Channel: Civil War – A Nation Divided despite there being a Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 port, it didn't also got a PlayStation 3 port.
- The PlayStation 2 version has worse graphics that almost looks like Die Hard: Vendetta and runs at a lower framerate.
- The game is very short lasting only 3 hours.
- Lots and we mean LOTS of stolen assets from other games.
- The compass objective and the helicopter turret mission looks like it's been stolen from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
- The reload animations are stolen from Soldier of Fortune: Payback, another Cauldron game, and James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire.
- Even the shotgun model is stolen from Soldier of Fortune: Payback.
- The weapon selection is lackluster, as there are only 12 weapons to use, even the previous Cauldron game Soldier of Fortune: Payback had more than 43 weapons to use.
- And also unlike that game, there is no Multiplayer mode.
- Artificial Difficulty: The enemies are sometimes dumb as they stand in the open doing nothing, or annoyingly unfair as they simply kill you in a few shoots.
- The hacking minigames can very between stupidly easy or very hard.
- The night vision in this game is totally useless because there are barely dark areas, it's only used to get past some of laser trip mines.
- Not only that, but it's also rechargeable making getting past them, very monotonous.
- Just like other Cauldron games, The PC version has no V-Sync option or graphical settings, aside from the resolution, and if the games runs at above 60FPS the bullets wont kill the enemies, so you'll have to enable that option through a graphic card control panel.
- There is one level where you can't use your guns and have to only use your taser because the enemies are secret service, which makes this level unfairly difficult.
- Why they are suddenly shooting at you is never explained, they just happen to become enemies.
- There are some of the enemies that you can shoot, and some that you can't, which is really confusing.
Qualities That Made The Ultimate Sacrifice
- The concept about a game where you have to protect the president sounds like a good concept, sadly, it's poorly executed.
- Unlike Soldier of Fortune: Payback and The History Channel: Battle for The Pacific, this one actually has proper aiming down sights that works as it should.
Reception
Secret Service has received generally negative reviews. It has an aggregate score of 49.50% on GameRankings for the Xbox 360 version based on 4 reviews. IGN reviewer Charles Onyett awarded the Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 version a 4.5 rating, praising some of the game's artificial intelligence for having a bit of challenge. However, Oynett pointed out the game's single-player campaign for being too short and not featuring a multiplayer mode.
Trivia
TBA