At a time when VH1 is firing off yet another round of "I Love the '80s" clip shows, proving that nostalgia for the Reagan era is at a record high, Mindware studios takes a trip back to the "me" decade with Cold War for the Xbox, which combines extremely derivative Splinter Cell-style stealth with just enough original elements to make the whole package worth checking out, particularly as it arrives wearing a budget price tag.

Cold War takes place in 1986, at a time when U.S.-Soviet relations are improving. The leader of the U.S.S.R. has taken a very open stance towards the West, and the words glasnost and perestroika are basically Russian for "hey, we're kinda tired of this persistent threat of mutual nuclear annihilation, wanna make nice?" Certain elements within the Soviet Union, however, exist solely because of that threat, and they're not real fond of the ever-growing atmosphere of détente. The head of the KGB comes up with a brilliant plan to frame an American for an attempted assassination of the Russian president, thus driving a wedge into the newly-formed uneasy friendship between the two countries. This is where the player, as journalist Matt Carter, steps in. Carter receives a tip regarding a secret meeting deep inside the Communist nation, and sneaks himself in, camera in tow, to catch the rendezvous on film. Little does Matt know, however, that while his baggage is being checked, his camera is being replaced – not, as one might expect, with mountain-grown Folger's crystals, but rather with a high-tech whiz-bang X-ray camera radiation gun thingy. The KGB shows up at an opportune moment to expose Carter as a CIA assassin, using the fact that he has a high-tech whiz-bang X-ray camera radiation gun thingy as proof. However, they fail to foresee the problems inherent in giving the guy a working camera of this sort, and Carter manages to use the device to escape. Now, all by himself, and armed only with George Jetson's Instamatic, he has to avoid capture, clear his name, and expose the plot. No problem.

Visually, Cold War is a mixed bag. While there are some very nice lighting effects throughout, the overall look is relatively bland, with subpar character models and environments. The locations are modeled after their real-life counterparts, which adds a nice sense of authenticity to the surroundings, but overall, the graphics are what you might expect from a budget title – certainly not bad, but not really impressive, either. The sound, similarly, gets the job done but does little else. As ordinary as the graphics are, they're certainly good enough to use in the story-advancing cut-scenes, and yet the developers chose to use terrible-looking comic book-style stills instead. Maybe it was to cut costs, or maybe it was to better complement the dialogue, which seems as though it was written and performed by community-theater rejects. It's a shame, really, because the actual meat of the plot is very interesting, but it's hard to appreciate given the shoddy delivery.

Gameplay in Cold War, to put it kindly, generously borrows from previous stealth titles, most notably the Splinter Cell series. There are three meters in the lower right of the screen that indicate the player's health, his current level of visibility (the sneak-o-meter), and the current level of charge in the camera's battery. Advancing through the game largely requires staying out of sight, taking out guards quietly, and generally not making yourself known. Actions are usually performed using a one-button context-sensitive menu system that will be instantly familiar to Sam Fisher fans. Players will also find that moving deliberately throughout the levels is made easier by the fact that Matt Carter is undoubtedly the slowest…photojournalist…ever. In most stealth games, walking while crouched is quieter, but slower. In Cold War, it's just quieter, meaning there's absolutely no reason to ever stand up, because it's just as slow. There is the capability to sprint, albeit briefly, by clicking the left thumbstick, but it's clumsy and only marginally faster, and therefore not much use. Overall, it's just a plodding, derivative stealth game with loose controls, and if it didn't offer anything more, it wouldn't be worth bothering with.

But offer more it does. Two gameplay elements inject just enough "neato" into the mix to make Cold War something significantly more than simply a Splinter Cell rip-off. First, the X-ray camera is just unbelievably cool. At any time (assuming there's enough juice in the camera's rechargeable battery), pressing the white button brings up the camera's view, which allows the player to see through walls, making it possible to stay completely hidden and still identify where the bad guys are, and whether or not they're packing heat. As if that weren't enough, the camera is also capable of firing a concentrated burst of radiation at whatever's in the center of its view. If that target is flammable, it'll explode. If, on the other hand, it's a human brain, it'll take a nap. For some reason, lining up a human skull (it's an X-ray, after all) in the viewfinder, pulling the trigger and watching as the little X-ray skeleton slumps to the ground never gets old. Knocking people out leads to the next innovation in gameplay, the gadget system. Once Ivan is in la-la-land, Carter can search him for items. Some of these items, like weapons and ammo, have an immediately obvious use, but others (rags, a tin can) have no apparent value. Luckily for the player, our intrepid reporter has a MacGyver-like knack for making gadgets out of everyday items. As the game progresses, blueprints and technical folders can be found that allow new gadgets to be made by combining different objects in different ways. It results in a constant supply of new toys throughout, most of them pretty cool to play with, and an incentive to try to find all the items throughout the levels. The X-ray camera and the gadget system make Cold War much more than just the simple stealth game it initially appears to be.

Overall, Cold War takes what is becoming a bit of a stagnant genre and brings enough new to the table to make it worthwhile. If the story was presented better or the basic controls were smoother, it would be a must-play. As it is, however, it's merely a solid game with some seriously fun new gimmicks that make it more than worth its $20 price.