24 is an awesome show, it really is. But sometimes I wonder how Jack Bauer puts up with so many terrible days, you know? If I even experienced half the crap he does throughout the course of these seasons, I would've put in a transfer for some kind of new career. I mean, you never hear about a lifeguard having a bad twenty-four hour day (unless, of course, he runs out of sunscreen, strains a back muscle, or gets bitten by a shark).

But that wouldn't make for a fun TV show, would it? (No, it'd make for another Baywatch wanna-be- joy!) The whole point of 24 is to present incredibly tense situations in real time, all with some of the best acting you'll find on a television show and a storyline that bounces all over the place. Just when you think Jack's solved a situation as a hostage in an airport terminal, he's bumped into a van on its way to a mall to spread toxins. It's that kind of constant bump-around that would make the formula ideal for a video game format...and so, here's 2K Games bringing us 24: The Game.

In the game, you take control of Bauer and other different characters throughout the course of a single bad day, where terrorists are once again plotting up to no good, and it's up to the Counter Terrorist Unit in Los Angeles to put their dastardly plans to rest. Hardcore fans will be introduced to a number of familiar elements in the game, as the events unfold between the second and third seasons of the show. You'll get a better idea of what happened to President Palmer following his assassination attempt, and get introduced to Jack's future partner (and his daughter Kim's boyfriend) Chase, who's got enough problems of his own just trying to find his way out of a base loaded with corrupt soldiers.

Like the show, the game's events unfold in a real-time format, although the majority of it is zipped past in favor of keeping up a frenzied pace. That means the first hour is over after you beat the two sub-stages involved with the events of that hour, but you see the clock ticking in a number of scenes to show that it's giving you a real-time feeling. You go through different sub-games and then watch the cinemas explain what's going on, including the results of your actions and the next dangers that lie ahead.

The presentation is rather good, showing precision in terms of the formula. It uses a lot of the split-screen method that the show uses, although, during gameplay, this means a slight bit of slowdown and maybe even a little disorientation. Still, I dig it, and it shows that the folks at SCE Cambridge have actually done their homework, instead of pasting their characters on a game without any bit of care for them. (I'd put in a rant here about Acclaim's trashing of Sydney Bristow, but I'm not up for it.) The graphics could've used some cleaning up here and there, especially in terms of realism on the characters and occasional frame rate issues, but the environments are still convincing and the cut-scenes still deliver.

As far as audio, SCE Cambridge has done a nice job in gathering up a majority of the cast from the show for audio work. At times, you can tell that it sounds like they're reading from a script instead of getting into a specific scenario, like how Jack manages to stay calm DESPITE the fact that CTU's been discovered here and there, but they still deliver with relative grace. You'll find a number of familiar voices here, including Kiefer Sutherland (Jack), Elisha Cuthbert (his daughter Kim), and Dennis Haysbert (President Palmer). The music is really well done in terms of keeping up with the action, and the sound effects are mixed and diverse enough to avoid falling into a rut of monotony, aside from some weak-ass engine noises during the car chases. Some of the enemy soldiers sound a bit generic for their own good, but those are just saps lining up for your gunfire anyway.

Then we come to the gameplay, and here is where others found the game to be somewhat disappointing. There's a wide variety of cut-scenes, and they're all bundled around different types of gameplay. For instance, some involve just taking control of a person and shooting enemies all over the place, while others involve the likes of high-speed car chases and puzzle solving (like a bomb disposal or the placement of snipers). It is a rather pleasant mix, although some stages work a bit better than others.

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