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You don't need to see around corners when you can see through them.
The best gadget is the one that was secretly substituted for Matt's own stock camera for reasons that wouldn't make any sense outside of an action movie. The x-ray camera can see right through walls, smoke, and even skin to get to the heart of any situation. It lets you know if there happens to be an armed soldier lying in wait in the next room, or if it's just a civilian doing some late night filing. The flash can make fire extinguishers explode or give guards the mother of all hangovers, and can even be modified with Matt's jury-rigging skills for added power.
While it's fun to take out guards, even if you just snap your fingers and wait for them to appear with your gun drawn, it starts to become a chore when all you ever seem to do is take out guards. There are a few side events, such as navigating ledges or directing a comrade through enemy-occupied corridors, but these are a little too simplistic to be more than diversions. There are also items that aren't particularly useful, like cigarettes that have to be carefully placed instead of tossed to attract a guard's attention, or tracking darts when the game usually takes great pains to show the set path of your enemy. While sometimes you would like to make a handy ether mine, but there just hasn't been any cans lying around for the past half hour.
There are also features that don't seem to have any point to them. Like the ability to hide in lockers and under desks when guards and other enemies usually have such a short movement range, if they move at all, especially when you can't even set off a bomb or take a quick shot at them. It would have been nice if they had given you the ability to stuff an unconscious body into one of these lockers, though moving them in general is equally pointless. There's not a moment in the game where the paths of two guards cross, and you actually have the time to knock one out and drag him away before the other spots you. You might as well leave it where it lies.
The limits of videogame reality.
After backtracking through the Kremlin a third time when you were supposed to be leaving at least two missions ago, logic begins to intrude, and you wonder why Matt can't make a simple lockpick to bypass all the locked doors he's always running into, or even scale a knee high barrier to reach some blocked stairs. Or take out a security camera with bullets that can piece armor like tinfoil. Strangest of all is how he had a map of the entire Kremlin right after being tossed into a cell, beaten and stripped of all his possessions. I've heard of photographic memories, but this is a bit silly.
Just like your average summer blockbuster, Cold War doesn't last long and doesn't leave much of an impression when it's all over and done with. All of its good ideas, the retro conspiracy, the homemade gadgets, the X-ray camera, wow you at first, but end up just wearing thin by the time its over, and the multiple difficulty levels really don't alter the game enough to justify another run. If it were a full priced title my expectations would have been higher, but for $20, Cold War a fun romp through a bygone era of espionage. Just don't expect the next Splinter Cell.
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