Project I.G.I. (released Stateside as Project I.G.I.: I'm Going In) is a tactical First-Person Shooter developed by the short-lived Norwegian company, Innerloop Studios, distributed and released by Eidos Interactive in 2000.
Players assume the role of David Jones, former British SAS operative, sent on an assignment to Estonia to track down an arms dealer who has knowledge regarding the recent theft of a nuclear warhead. Tracking the stolen weapon to an abandoned KGB camp, Jones inevitably realize he'll need to stop the warhead's detonation to prevent World War III.
A sequel, I.G.I.-2: Covert Strike was released in 2003. David Jones is back, and investigating another superweapons theft; this time being a set of high-tech prototype EMP chips stolen from a US military facility and kept in a terrorist hideout somewhere in the Carpathian mountains. Jones' mission eventually uncovers the terrorists' deals with a rogue Chinese general who intends to use the EMP device to cause chaos and destruction, with Jones tracking the EMP device in missions leading to Libya, Russia, and China.
I.G.I.-2: Covert Strike is noted for it's accuracy and realism, due to having former Special Air Service operative Chris Ryan as a consultant.
A third installment, I.G.I: Origins, was announced by publisher Toadman Interactive in 2019, but so far no release date has been confirmed. In 2023, developer Anti Matter Games closed, leading to it being in Development Hell.
"I'm Going In."
- Abandoned Mine: In the sequel, Jones infiltrates a mine where terrorists are stockpiling stolen weapons. It's even titled "Deep in the Mines".
- Actionized Sequel: Zigzagged with Covert Strike as the game puts more focus on stealth gameplay and, like the name suggests, being more covert during missions. However, players are free to choose their way to play the game which means either sneaking around undetected or massacring everyone in the bases with an AK-47. If you choose to go loud for most of the game, Covert Strike can have around three times the action, with loads and loads of shootouts, more mooks, and more weapons (25 firearms compared to the first game's 15). One mission even has Jones control a M2 Browning heavy machine gun mounted on a helicopter and rains Death from Above by blowing up everything and everyone on the way.
- African Terrorists: The sequel's missions in Libya have Jones dealing with these, although they're just a cog in a much larger terrorist network under General Wu Xing.
- Anti-Air: One of the first game's earlier missions is set in a military airbase containing SAM launchers Jones needs to sabotage for his transport to land.
- Arms Dealer: The original game has Jones investigating an Estonian arms merchant, Josef Priboi, who has been kidnapped by his clients who betrayed him and has secret information regarding the stolen warhead. Jones managed to extract Josef, only for Josef to reveal the warhead is with his uncle, Jach Priboi, another arms merchant. Jach returns in the sequel as well to help Jones investigate the EMP device's theft.
- Artificial Stupidity: AI for mooks in the first game can get really bad at times.
- Jones can snipe a mook within the presence of his comrades, and as long as Jones' isn't spotted, other mooks will strangely ignore their downed comrade. Players as Jones can gleefully stay on top of a guard tower and take their sweet time picking enemies off before climbing down.
- Enemy soldiers' corpses don't immediately disappear after they're killed. Expect mooks entering a new area to mindlessly walk over a dead body of their colleague, without being suspicious.
- One of the missions has a Shooting Gallery where terrorists are too excited testing out their machine guns on targets, to the point where they fail to realize Jones is shooting their heads off despite being in the same room as them. One can argue that it's because of the gunfire drowning out Jones' shots, but the mooks are standing in a parallel line and well within each other's sight.
- There are also parts where Jones gets into shootouts with enemies in a single area (without equipping silencers) and despite the gunfire, enemies in other parts of the base will be completely oblivious to the action. The only way to attract enemy attention is to trigger alarms, because the AI for mooks programmed them to respond only towards said alarm.
- Mostly averted with the sequel whose enemy AI is improved, though there are occasional moments here and there such as running around in the open like headless chickens instead of taking cover while being shot at by the player with a sniper rifle from far away.
- Back Stab: If armed with his knife, Jones can sneak up behind mooks and stealthily knife them from the back. It's great for saving ammo.
- Bald of Evil: General Wu Xing from the sequel is bald, and a rogue Chinese official who wants to overthrow his own country with stolen superweapons. So far, he's also the only Big Bad in the series who is bald.
- Big Bad: Commander Ekk in the first game, General Wu Xing in the sequel, both of them are Hidden Villains whose involvement in the stolen superweapons isn't made clear until halfway through.
- The Cavalry:
- Near the end of the first game, two I.G.I commandos arrive to provide you with a much-needed fire support during a brutal Hold the Line segment where you have to defend Anya from a seemingly endless wave of Ekk's best soldiers while she's trying to defuse a nuclear bomb.
- This is also how the sequel ends: After killing General Wu Xing and sabotaging the EMP launch site, helicopters containing other I.G.I operatives led by Anya arrive at the missile base, thanks to Jones relaying them co-ordinates to battle Wu Xing's soldiers.
- Checkpoint Starvation:
- I'm Going In only saves your game at the beginning of each mission. There is not any in-game checkpoint or a manual save system, at all. Getting yourself killed near the end of a brutal 30-minute mission? Have fun doing that all over again.
- Covert Strike still doesn't have any in-game checkpoint but you can save your game manually through your PDA's "Upload mission data to IGI H.Q" feature. However, it has a limit where you're only allowed 5 saves at Easy difficulty and 3 saves at Normal difficulty. At Hard difficulty? Zero.
- Cold Sniper: One of Jones' specialties as an IGI Operative is being a sniper, and he's anything but friendly.
- Destroy the Security Camera: Certain enemy installations will have cameras that raises alarm if Jones is spotted, but he can shoot them either from the sides or a distance away.
- Elite Mooks: Ekk's Spetsnaz soldiers in I'm Going In, all of whom can be identified by their grey outfits and black balaclavas. Compared to regular soldiers, they have higher health, faster reaction time, and can spot the player from a farther range.
- Empty Quiver: The first game revolves around Jones' effort to retrieve a stolen nuclear warhead. The sequel have an EMP device instead, which is equally bad since the Big Bad attempts to use it to cripple the US' defense and instigate World War III.
- Evil Old Folks: According to Anya, the corrupt General Wu Xing was once a "personal friend to Chairman Mao", whose rise to power was around 1949, during the PRC's establishment. Assuming the game is set in the early 2000s, Wu Xing would be at least over 70 years of age.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Due to the sequel's missions being more global in scale, more often than not the mooks will speak in whatever languages they're supposedly native to (Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, etc)… in thick, British accents. With the voice actors being clearly from the UK. More often than not their lines will seep into Welcome to Corneria territory.
- The "Chinese" guards, for instance, have 70% of their dialogue limited to:
"Tā qù nǎ'er?" note
"Tā zài nà biān!" note
"Bǎohù nǐ zìjǐ." note - Hollywood Silencer: Used in both games, with the sequel's first mission having a silenced pistol as Jones' default equipment as he sneaks into a terrorist base unnoticed.
- Improvised Zipline: In both games, most guard towers will conveniently contain angled ziplines from their sides, for Jones to slide across (if the player doesn't want to climb down) as a shortcut to another part of the base.
- Island Base: "Island Assault" from the second game is set on an island which is located somewhere in the South China Sea. There's an Oriental Palace deep inside the island where Wu Xing is waiting for his EMP device.
- Locomotive Level:
- The first game has "Missile Trainyard", where Jones infiltrates a train filled with terrorists.
- In the sequel, Jones exits the mine shaft via a train, and needs to swap lead with mooks on adjacent rails.
- Mission Control: Rebecca Anya, Jones' IGI handler, serves this role in the original game, providing him briefing and clues via intercom before and during stages. Covert Strike replaces her with his new mission director, Phillip White, and Anya returns as Jones' handler after Quest and White's betrayal in the second half of the game.
- Neck Snap: Added in Covert Strike by pressing the action button behind unaware enemies.
- One-Hit Polykill: In both games, Jones' sniper rifles can take down two (in rarer occasions, three) enemies standing in a straight line, sometimes through walls if the sniper rifle is equipped with a thermal sight.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: In the ending FMV of the first game, with Anya being wounded and both of them being left behind with hundreds of enemies between them and the final rendezvous point, Jones readies his MP5 and has this to say:I'm going in.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Colonel Ekk has significantly enhanced health (very unusual for the series), and requires a staggering 10 sniper rifle shots to bring down. At full health, she can take a direct hit from a 94mm anti-tank launcher to the face and still standing.
- Respawning Enemies: The first game makes heavy use of these if the alarm is raised in both limited and infinite varieties, notably they come from huts which briefly stop spawning enemies while Jones is inside them but resume the instant Jones leaves while the sequel either removes them or at least makes it so there's no more infinite waves.
- Shoot Out the Lock:
- Averted when it comes to locked doors, safes, and vaults. Jones needs to pick the lock, in a short cutscene where he's vulnerable to enemy mooks if any shows up.
- This trope only applies if Jones is attempting to bypass padlocked fences. It takes at least three shots if he's using his dinky pistol, though.
- Sniper Rifle: Jones' preferred weapon in both installments, him being an ex-SAS operator and all that. There's more than one Sniping Mission where Jones is tasked with infiltrating the top of a guard tower and using his sniper to take down enemy patrol before proceeding.
- Useless Security Camera: Surveillance cameras in enemy territories (especially in the sequel) might as well not be there at all, what with a glaring, blinking light located right on them allowing the cameras to be spotted from a mile away. It's like painting a massive green bullseye for Jones to help him Destroy the Security Camera.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: General Wu Xing has his co-conspirator and fellow traitor, Phillip White, executed after receiving the stolen EMP chips.Wu Xing: "The chips got here and appear intact. Your men is not important. Officers at his level are always expendable."Wu Xing: "...had him killed? I can get rid of irritating officers by myself." shoots White
