Skills is another area where choices must be made. The player begins with 5000 skill points which can be spent improving various skills including computers, electronics, environmental training, lockpicking, medicine, swimming and weaponry. Obviously choosing the skills that best suit your intended style of play becomes a major strategy element in successfully finishing the game. For instance, in the first level, your mission is to rescue Agent Hermann, who is being held hostage in the Statue of Liberty ruins on the New York harbor, and interrogate his captor's leader to discover the destination of the stolen ambrosia vaccine. Several options for penetrating the ruins are available including making your way through the front by brute force, meeting up with an informant who gives you a key to walk in or climbing up the back with fewer enemies to compete against.
Choices also arise on every encounter with an armed guard or thug.
Such a design choice for managing inventory is pretty simple, but the game does nearly require a two-button mouse or trackball for intuitive play. While this is nothing new in the design of many modern Mac games, gamers who stick with their single button mouse will soon tire of it. Possibly one flaw in creating that believable atmosphere is the artificial intelligence of NSF guards and other enemies. Many times, they'll get worked up and begin running around with their guns drawn when you shoot at them or approach them in plain sight, but will simply run around a lot and not make terribly sensible approaches to taking you out. It's this kind of discrepancy that will force you to save often as you make your own path through the game's conspiracy-driven plot.