Mission: Impossible is an action and third-person shooter video game for the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation based on the 1996 film Mission: Impossible. It was developed by Ocean Software and distributed by Infogrames Entertainment. It later received a PlayStation port, with minor additions such as voice acting, but reduced graphics.

Gameplay

The player controls Ethan Hunt in most of the missions, and the majority of the game centers around completing tasks undetected or disguised. The player can can choose from a wide variety of weapons and gadgets, including pistols and automatic weapons. On select missions they are given the explosive gum and the Facemaker from the movie. They are also given explosives to set on targets. Other equipment Ethan is provided with includes smoke generators, infra-red contacts, gas injectors, fingerprint scanners, and computer disks.

Unlike most other shooters of the time, the gameplay often required the player to exercise caution and restraint in carrying out mission objectives. In many missions, outright use of violence is discouraged or even penalized, and it is easy to fail a mission by accidentally shooting the wrong person. Most of the missions require the player to stealthily infiltrate or sneak out of areas, such as CIA Headquarters in Langley. They can infiltrate some facilities only using the Facemaker, which disguises themselves as one of the enemy. Sometimes the player is required to do this multiple times.

Missions

The levels roughly follow the storyline of the movie, though there is a subplot based in Russia that is entirely original. There are five missions comprising 20 levels.

• Ice Hit
• Lundkwist Base
• Subpen
• Recover NOC List
• Embassy Function
• Warehouse
• KGB HQ
• Security Hallway
• Sewage Control
• Escape
• Fire Alarm
• CIA Escape
• Interrogation
• CIA Rooftop
• Terminal Room
• Rooftop Escape
• Mole Hunt
• Station
• Train Car
• Train Roof
• Ice Storm
• Subpen
• Tunnel
• Mainland
• Gunboat

Plot

The game starts with Jim Phelps in a park outside the CIA, getting a message about a terrorist plot in northwestern Russia planning to send missiles to a rival country. Phelps sends Ethan Hunt to do the mission. While there, Hunt knocks out a man and takes on his identity. He gets a letter and sends it to the truck driver as an excuse to visit the submarine pen. The truck drives through a long tunnel and ends up at the submarine pen. Ethan loses his mask because of the cold, then gets some magnetic mines. He sends one of the mines to John Clutter, who uses the mine to blow up the submarine transporting the missiles. Clutter notices a patrol boat and orders Ethan to use the other mine to blow it up. After doing so, they escape the base.

While this is happening, Alexander Golystine, a worker at the Embassy of Russia in Prague, kidnaps the female IMF agent Candice Parker and steals one half of the NOC list, a list that has the real names of IMF's agents. The embassy has a powerful computer that may help break the list's code. Another IMF agent, Robert Barnes, attempts to rescue Candice (who is imprisoned at the embassy) and expose Golystine as a traitor, but is caught. Phelps gets a message about this, and again, sends Ethan on the mission. To rescue Candice and Barnes, Ethan must reach the KGB headquarters, which he does not have access to. The Ambassador's aide has access, though, so he takes advantage of this fact by asking agent Sarah Davies for a facemaker. To make sure he can escape safely after rescuing Candice and Barnes and destroying the powerful computer, Ethan puts smoke generators in the ventilation ducts, which will later cause the illusion of smoke. Ethan then goes to the ballroom, where agent Dieter Harmon, posing as a bartender, gives him a wine drink filled with nausea powder for the Ambassador's aide. The piano player thinks that the Ambassador's aide will come down if the Czech national anthem is played, so Ethan gets the score for that song and gives it to the piano player. After the Ambassador's aide goes downstairs, Ethan gives the drink to him, but has a drink of his own as well. The Ambassador's aide feels sick and runs for the restroom, where Ethan knocks him out and takes on his identity. Since Ethan does not have the Ambassador's free access badge, he must run through a warehouse filled with toxic waste. He does so, finds a protection suit while doing so, then ends up at the KGB headquarters. While there, he visits Barnes, who is extremely sick. Barnes tells Ethan about a Golystine mask he hid in the security hallway, then faints. Ethan finds a video freezer, then enters the Security Head's office. Ethan finds a switch to enter a secret room behind the Head's office that controls the cameras. Ethan puts the video freezer in the camera control machine, then Phelps sends a transfer order to the embassy. Unfortunately, Ethan's act exposes the Ambassador as an enemy, so he must take on a new identity. He knocks out the Security Head, whose identity he takes on. Ethan gets the transfer order and gives it to Golystine, who frees Candice. Ethan and Candice enter the security hallway, where Ethan removes his masks. Ethan finds a switch that turns off the electric tiles, giving Candice the chance to run through. They both enter the sewage control, where they find the powerful computer used for the NOC list. They get the list and run back through the hallway. As they do, Ethan enters a secret room with the Golystine mask. He gets the mask, then gets the NOC list back from a guard who knocked out Candice and stole the list. Ethan wakes up Candice, then they go back to the KGB headquarters. Ethan unfreezes the cameras and wears the Golystine mask. He then destroys the cameras. Ethan and Candice then go back to the embassy's entrance hall. Since the fire crew have arrived to take out the fake smoke, Ethan knows the only way to escape is to pose as a fireman. Jack Kieffer, an IMF agent posing as a fireman, takes Ethan to the restroom, where Ethan privately puts on a fireman suit. Ethan gives another suit to Candice, who hid in the elevator while Ethan talked to Jack. Ethan, Candice, and Jack all escape the embassy.

Ethan is taken to interrogation at the CIA, where he is told about his inflation and being the "mole" in the plan of a person known only as Max. Ethan denies this, but is not believed. He escapes his interrogation room and gets his equipment back. When Ethan leaves the interrogation room, he overhears his interrogators talking about a serum. He knocks out the guard guarding the interrogaion sector and takes his fingerprint, which he uses to escape the interrogation sector and into the hallway. Unfortunately, the hallway is over-run with cameras, so Ethan must blind these cameras using paint. And part of the hallway is blocked, so Ethan knocks out the guard with the free-access fingerprint. After Ethan continues, he finds a door that the free access print cannot unlock, so he sends the sergeant, who is similar to Eugene Kittridge from the film and also one of his interrogators from earlier, to unlock that door. After Ethan goes through the door, he feels nauseous. He enters the elevator, which takes him to the infirmary. A doctor gives him the antidote to his illness. To avoid being caught reaching the rooftop, Ethan distracts everyone's attention by either rising a hospital bed or turning off an occupied treadmill. After doing so, he uses a construction machine to reach the rooftop. While there, Ethan turns off the lights for an arriving helicopter, then finds a bag full of equipment. He wears a service man's suit, and is sent to fix the lights. He uses an EMS to stop the helicopter from escaping. He then reaches the security level, which is guarded with lasers, so Ethan puts a sword in the lasers to absorb them. To reach the very top of the CIA, Ethan puts a camera on a high box and waits for a guard to come down so that Ethan can discover the code. Ethan gets the camera, enters the code, then enters the door at the top, where he meets Candice. The room they are in is directly above the infamous terminal room from the movie. Ethan is connected to a fibre cable, then drops down, avoiding the lasers. He uses the card-reader to lock the door and turn on the computer. He then gets the NOC list from the computer and puts a virus-filled disk in the computer to turn off the lasers. When Ethan escapes, he is given explosive gum to use as a diversion. Ethan goes back the the helipad, where he removes and destroys the EMS. He then enters the helicopter, which is headed for Waterloo Station in London.

When Ethan goes to the station, he meets Max, who steals the NOC list. Max sends two of her henchmen to execute Ethan. Fortunately, two ex-agents, Luther Stickell and Franz Krueger, have arrived to act as snipers. After shooting the executors, Candice tells Ethan about Max's plan, and sends him to wander around the station while she gets more details. If any civilians are killed, Ethan will no longer be able to prove his innocence. And some of Max's henchmen are disguised as civilians. After a while, with Luther and Krueger taking down any henchmen disguised as civilians, Candice sends Ethan on the train. Ethan wanders around the train, taking down all of Max's henchmen, then meets Candice, who gives him a facemaker and a gas capsule. He then finds a switch in a carriage-connecting room that blocks the exits, so he activates it. In the next carriage, Ethan knocks out the ticket collector and takes on his identity. In the carriage after that, he puts the gas capsule in the room with Max in it. Max dies, then Ethan takes back the NOC list - unfortunately, Max has set the bomb. Ethan goes into the next carriage, which is the bar, and finds out that the mole is in fact his former mentor, Jim Phelps. Ethan holds Phelps at gunpoint, but Phelps escapes onto the train roof. Ethan then shoots Max's remaining men in the train, one of which was disguised as a bartender. He gets a liquid nitrogen can, which he uses to destroy the hinges of a safe. The safe contains Max's bomb, which Ethan defuses. Ethan then goes on the train roof to chase Phelps. After shooting Max's henchmen and destroying choppers, Ethan catches up with Phelps in the Channel Tunnel, where Phelps is about the escape on a helicopter. Ethan shoots the helicopter with a rocket launcher. The helicopter drops, crushing Phelps. Ethan then returns to the CIA, where he is told about being cleared of all suspicion. He is then told that he has another mission coming up, so he leaves.

Ethan goes to the same park bench that Jim Phelps went to at the beginning of the game, where he gets a message about the return of the terrorist group in northwestern Russia. They have upgraded the security at the submarine base. Ethan must undermine the deal and destroy the base so that it cannot anymore be used for evil purposes. Ethan arrives there with his former fellow agents, John Clutter and Andrew Dowey. Ethan gives some objects to Clutter and Dowey, then blows up a pumphouse. He then meets with Clutter and Dowey on the communications building. Clutter and Dowey jump on a truck, then Ethan is reminded about a mistake Dowey made with wire-cutters. Dowey accidentally turned off the tunnel lights, so Ethan must find some night vision glasses. He does, then jumps on a truck that takes him through the tunnel. While in the tunnel, Ethan blows up some anchor bolts. This causes the tunnel to explode. At the main part of the base, Ethan blows up a power plant, then uses explosive plastic to cut off the camera power. He enters the building where he knocked out that man in his first mission, which has become the office of an accountant. He knocks out the accountant, and takes on his identity. He enters a bunker which has a briefcase with explosives. Using the accountant's access code and a keycard, Ethan gets the briefcase and gives it to Clutter, who sets it to explode when the helicotper reaches 30 metres. Ethan then goes to a factory, where he meets Basil Prokosh, the leader of the terrorist group. Ethan gives the briefcase to one of Prokosh's henchmen, then takes off his mask. He tries to stop Prokosh, but it is too late. Fortunately, Andrew Dowey has gone to a sniper post, so Dowey shoots Prokosh before he escapes. The helicopter tries to escape, but explodes because of the explosive briefcase. Ethan and Clutter then escape on a gunboat. As they escape, they destroy any buildings they pass, including a radar and a huge gas factory. They then meet Candice on a huge boat.

The final mission takes place in the Russian embassy's entrance hall. Here, Ethan meets the programmers of the game, who tell him about their job. The piano player is there, too. After Ethan talks to everyone, he and Candice come down into the ballroom, while everyone cheers.

Trivia

• During the introduction to the Ice Storm mission, Robert Barnes can be seen.
• In the Embassy Function level, there is a Russian-speaking couple. Although they speak Russian, killing one of them will prompt the other one to call out for help in English.

Reception

Mission: Impossible received mediocre reviews from critics. Gamespot gave the N64 Version a 6.6 "Fair", and the PlayStation version a 4.4 "Poor" out of a possible 10.