The first person shooter genre is a mixed bag of good and bad when they are released on a console. The greater majority of first person shooters are ports of the PC version and in my opinion, you better come armed with a mouse and keyboard because playing on a pad ain't going to cut it. Also, for all the impressive visuals and blazing frame rate a first person shooter may have, it's not uncommon for the quality of both to decrease when split-screen or online multi-player games are started. Most of all, since so many of these corridor shooters come off as PC ports to a console, it just doesn't play right  the reason why Goldeneye was such a great console FPS (and one of the few) was the controls were just right on the control pad; it enabled players to easily move and fire without having to worry about getting dizzy or spinning out of control. Although AM2's take on this genre, Outtrigger doesn't control as well as it could on a Dreamcast pad, the game is one of the most complete first person shooters offering top-notch graphics tons of gameplay modes, multi-player online modes with up to five other players, mouse/keyboard support, and the much neglected Broadband Adapter support making the game one of the more attractive first person shooters on the Dreamcast.
As part of a international anti-terrorist force, you'll be traveling around the world taking out baddies in the most violent ways. There are four default characters, each specializing in specific weaponry (i.e. laser pulse rifles, sniper guns, etc.) as well as having their varying attributes in speed and jumping ability. There's a pretty decent edit mode where you can even mix and match different weapons of other characters to create your own character. However, characters are limited to three different weapons: a general shooting weapon, an artillery-type explosive weapon, and grenades. While you don't have a huge selection of weapons, throughout each of the several stages in the game, you'll be able to pick up interesting power-ups; these include thermography that allows you to see through walls, a plasma cannon that shoots a ball of energy that bounces off walls, and of course the power-up icon that temporarily increases the damage you deliver. All these items and weapons are extremely useful, especially with the maze-like design to the levels.

Running at a fast 60 frames per second, good looking special effects, and solid visuals, Outtrigger is one of the best looking first person shooters. Although the levels tend to be a little compact, they are all designed very well to take advantage of specific weaponry. The dark level Oeda level, with its labyrinth-like platforms and long pathways, is a pretty nice place if you've got a sniper's rifle. More compact levels really demonstrate the use of the reflecting plasma cannon that can bounce off walls to hit a target. I really enjoy the levels of the game as they are very well designed to give advantages to every character and playing style. When playing in first person mode (you can switch between first and third person perspectives), there's some great detail in the weapons that you're holding and some of the bosses look pretty darn cool.

Outtrigger looks like a winner, but does it play like a winner? Well, when playing with the Dreamcast controller, the controls are just satisfactory  you have over a dozen different types of control setups to choose from. Still, when it comes to first person shooters, I'm always about using a mouse and keyboard and Outtrigger supports keyboard and mouse configurations as well. One small problem is when using the mouse and keyboard controls, you'll definitely notice the restricted amount of movement you have; you'll have to turn off Control Assist to get the full 3D movement. Otherwise you'll have full 180-degree turning movement, but you can't instantly turn 180 degrees with a quick flick of your wrist. Additionally, you're limited to the vertical viewing angle; you can't look complete straight up at a 90-degree angle, nor can you look directly over a ledge to see if a character is right under you. While you eventually get used to this, it's still sometimes aggravating not having the full freedom of movement with your mouse. In any case, the point of the game is to kill, kill, and kill some more. While you have several different maps (including exclusive maps not found in the arcade version), a great number of missions in the single player mode, and a good number of play modes, I just wish you had a few more weapons to add a bit more variety to the game. Otherwise, the game plays and runs quite well especially with online play.

While not absolutely flawless, online play with Outtrigger is quite good on the 56k modem. It's not absolutely perfect; there's like a one second lag when you fire you weapon and actually seeing your character fire your weapon. The "teleportation" effect we saw in Daytona USA 2001 - where opposing cars would teleport from once place to another online  doesn't happen too often in Outtrigger but in a few online battles, it's aggravating when you see your rocket heading to a target, only to see that target teleport a few feet over. Then, you have online play with the Broadband Adapter and it's much better than the 56k  loading games is much quicker and there's not as much lag when firing weapons. The "teleportation" effect does occur when using the Broadband Adapter, but it's nice to actually have broadband connections with this game.

Despite a few nagging problems with controls, and a small selection of weapons, Outtrigger is a solid effort by AM2 giving first person shooter fans something refreshingly different than what they've experienced in past Dreamcast corridor shooters. With a good combination of great single player mission modes and decent online playability, once you get used to the controls and the levels, it may be hard to stop that itchy trigger finger.