IGN writes: "The ever-popular first-person shooter genre is far from stagnant, as releases like Valve's online co-operative title, Left 4 Dead, so clearly prove. Yet along with titles big and small that remind us there's so much more to the genre than barreling down a corridor spraying bullets, there are just as many that do nothing interesting or novel. The latter is certainly the case with Cauldron's Secret Service; when it's not blatantly ripping off Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, it fails to escape tedium's event horizon.
Perhaps the game's most interesting aspect is its release date. In early November 2008 it hit store shelves, just in time for the Presidential election. Considering it's got a narrative enveloping a potential assassination, a vice-president with a distinctly Cheney-like appearance, and threats from a militant foreign power, perhaps Activision thought it the best window to publish. As it turns out, the release represents pretty bad taste, particularly because the game does not attempt to resolve or present its issues or themes in any sort of elegant manner. Instead it's very much a crude, bumbling mess of a conspiracy plot on a level of ridiculous that occasionally exceeds even the preposterous exploits of Jack Bauer."
