Danger Girl is a 2000 Third-Person Shooter developed by THQ and N-Space, a Licensed Game based on the J. Scott Campbell comic book of the same name with a gameplay format more or less lifted from Syphon Filter, though the popularity of Tomb Raider is probably why it was made.
In 1600s India, a ritual to harness the power of Gods goes haywire, resulting in the destruction of an entire cult as well as a set of catacombs used for the cult's ritual being dragged underground. Three golden tablets used for the ceremony are then taken to three continents worldwide, to prevent the powers from being misused.
In present-day, Danger Girl agent Abbey Chase - returning from a mission in Costa Rica while investigating the shady billionaire Donavin Conrad - uncovers Donavin's dealings with the dreaded Hammer Empire, where she found out Donavin is assisting Hammer in obtaining one of the three ancient Indian tablets to facilitate Hammer's plans for global domination. The legions of Hammer, led by Abbey's arch-nemesis Natalia Kassle and the brutal Major Maxim, are seeking the other two tablets around the world while staging terrorist attacks to keep the Danger Girls at bay, and once again it's up to the Danger Girls to stop them in twelve levels of gameplay.
Players assume the control of three Danger Girl Field agents - markswoman Abbey Chase, whip-swinging assassin Sydney Savage, and JC, a new recruit and youngest Danger Girl on the team, in which this game is her sole appearance in the franchise by far.
"You want my tropes, pal? You got 'em!"
- Adaptational Wimp: Natalia Kassle went from a very competent and dangerous Dark Action Girl in the comics, who's one of the Danger Girl's best members before her Face–Heel Turn and puts up one hell of a fight against Abbey to a Dirty Coward who, upon having the doomsday project thwarted, then flees while throwing her mooks at Abbey. And when forced into a gunfight, she's hardly as durable as the earlier bosses, and simply dies like a wuss after Abbey had her cornered. She even whimpers Abbeys' name as she falls to her death!Natassia: "...no, no, Abbey!" [splat]
- Arch-Enemy: All three of the girls have their own personal nemesis from the Hammer Empire, notably Sydney Savage against Assassin X, JC towards Major Maxim, but what really sticks out is Abbey Chase's vendetta towards Natalia Kassle, the sworn enemy to the girls.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The only way to damage Major Maxim, by shooting his tank of Übermensch fluid. He just regenerates his health overwise.
- Bad Boss: Natalia Kassle, much like in the comics, really isn't the nicest employer to her mooks. One of her cutscenes have her randomly killing a Hammer Soldier just for bringing her bad news.
- Behind the Black: How Abby gets captured in the last level; a mook who wasn't there until the cutscene starts sneaks up on her.
- Boom, Headshot!: Shooting mooks in the head can take them down instantly, while for bosses it deals extra damage. Also enforced in "Museum Mayhem!" - Sydney's weapon is a gun that fires tranquilizer darts, and she can knock out museum guards only by shooting their faces - hitting anywhere else will make them flinch like any regular firearm, but they'll shrug off the effects instantly.
- Boss-Only Level: Two such levels occur, in "Crossing the Line" and "Maximum Firepower".
- Canon Foreigner: JC, the Danger Girl recruit is made solely for this game.
- Choice of Two Weapons: Sydney has two weapon, her trusty Sniper Rifle, and her secondary weapon: a whip which allows her to lash out repeatedly on enemies to death. She's notably the only playable character with a melee weapon.
- Curse Cut Short: Abby, at the start of "Caution: Curves Ahead", still upset that JC didn't show up for extraction from the previous mission, starts to threaten to kick JC's ass, only for JC to turn off her radio before the threat is finished.
- David Versus Goliath: While all the girls have their own assigned boss battles, for the diminutive teenaged JC she gets to fight... Major Maxim, a gigantic superhuman Super-Soldier brute roughly five times larger than her. Whose health bar absolutely dwarves hers.
- Exposed to the Elements: Subverted in "Dangerous Discovery" starring Abbey Chase. The loading screen for the stage shows Abbey Chase in a slinky, extremely sheer evening gown, out in the snow. Then, right after the obvious Fanservice, she immediately begins complaining about the cold and taking damage, and the player has to very quickly find warm clothes before she freezes to death.
- Eye Scream: Not in the game, but it shows up in the opening cinematics: when the apocalyptic ceremony backfires, several cultists have their eyes melted out of the sockets.
- Faceless Goons: Every one of Donavin's men or Hammer, save for the Elite Mooks, wear balaclavas or gas masks.
- Feed It a Bomb: An unintentional example occurs with Abbey in the first level, when she's about to make her way to Donavin's mansion. A crocodile suddenly emerged from the waters behind her just as she's finished dressing, and nearly chomps her down, only succeeding in swallowing Abbey's backpack which contains bundles of C4. A pissed-off Abbey then detonates her entire pack.
- Firing One-Handed: All three of the girls can do this if they're holding a weapon meant to be held with both hands (e.g. machine-guns, shotguns) while strafing sideways. It's a good trick for avoiding enemy fire while running.
- Freeze Sneeze: Abby fires one off at the start of "Dangerous Discovery", as a Five-Second Foreshadowing that the cold will play an element in the level.
- Gas Mask Mooks: All the low-level Hammer grunts are clad in gasmasks, as with their powerful captain, Major Maxim. Not their sergeants though.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Natalia Kassle, who spends most of the boss fight running while ordering her mooks to stall Abbey. She then gets cornered at the edge of a pit, without any mooks left, leading to the penultimate shootout between the two (which turns out to be hardly as impressive as the player would expect).
- Goggles Do Nothing: JC wears a pair, as befitting her status as the team mechanic, that she never actually uses.
- Healing Boss: Major Maxim comes at you with massive firepower, a gigantic health bar, and a healing tank on his back that immediately recharges his health to maximum when you managed to drag it down by half. But to do so Maxim will have to raise his arms, giving you a few seconds to shoot the tank. Destroying it will remove Maxim's ability to heal himself and allowing him to be killed like normal - or alternatively, use pipe bombs to target his healing tank directly.
- "Hey, You!" Haymaker: All three of the girls can take down unsuspecting mooks via sneaking from behind and hitting action, where they then knock out their target non-fatally. This trick is notably helpful for Sydney in "Museum Mayhem", since she's not allowed to kill anyone in this stage.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: JC dispatches Doctor Kharnov by stabbing him with his own giant needle that he was about to use on her.
- Hostage Situation: "Rigged to Blow" and "Caution: Curves Ahead" have JC and Sydney being sent to infiltrate an oil rig in the Baltic Sea to take out a platoon of Hammer Soldiers holding the rig's crew hostage. Should more than four hostages die in either mission the mission needs to be restarted all over.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: The first segment of "Dangerous Discovery", which has Abbey taking down Hammer soldiers while in a fine, silk evening gown. She is force to change halfway through into more practical winter gear since a fine silk dress is no match for the Swiss mountains.
- Leap and Fire: Pressing jump while strafing, and pulling the trigger, allows the girls to pull this stunt off. All three have a different variation of it.
- Match Cut: The opening cinematics have the cult being wiped out by the doomsday device, and a cultist falling in the center of the screen... which is match-cut to 400 years later, the cultist as a skeleton lying in the same position as he did four centuries earlier, before Major Maxim's boot crushes his bones.
- Mook Lieutenant: Hammer sergeants are a less-than-common enemy, wearing long trench coats and caps instead of gasmasks. They're often seen instructing low-level mooks during cutscenes and when battling the girls in shootouts, tend to favour high-caliber pistols.
- Museum Level: "Museum Mayhem!" have Sydney infiltrating the British Museum to uncover the third and last piece of the tablet, which is stored in the museum's vault away from the public, in an attempt to collect the artifact before the Hammer Empire does. It's also the only mission with zero deaths, as the mooks are security guards just doing their jobs and Sydney can only subdue them with darts or Knockout Gas.
- Mythology Gag: A few to be found, such as Abby having something torn from her back by a crocodile (one of the very first things we saw happen to her in the comic) or Abby having Clothing Damage in the ending in the exact same spot as the same moment with the crocodile from the comic.
- Night-Vision Goggles:
- Abby finds some in the very first level, which are helpful for avoiding some otherwise hard to see trip-laser mines and bombs.
- Also Used by Sydney in "Museum Mayhem!" to navigate her way past an underground vault without turning on the lights (or risk triggering the museum's security system).
- No-Gear Level: JC, at the start of "Bustin' Out". While she will quickly gain some weaponry (a shotgun is in the same room she starts in), she has to spend the whole mission and the next with no radar.
- Non-Standard Game Over: Letting too many hostages die in either oil rig level ends the mission then and there.
- Not Quite Dead: Assassin X in the game was seemingly killed by Sydney after a lengthy boss battle... only for the next cutscene to reveal he's still alive, when he suddenly ambushed and abducts JC who's about to give Sydney a lift.Sydney: Erm, JC? The "dead" ninja's gone... JC? JC!!!!
[Assassin X suddenly sneaks up behind JC and drags her away] - Oh, Crap!: Abby drops one when she is captured in the final level.
- Quick Time Event: There's a few of these the girls have to execute in the middle of certain levels, or lose a life and restart from the beginning. The first mission have Abbey being ambushed by two of Donavin's guards while in a bunker and must press a series of buttons to avoid getting killed (pass that and Abbey obtains a machine-gun), and in a later level JC needs to go through one of these to escape from Doctor Kharnov.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Abbey Chase is about to shoot the players in most covers of the game, including the one above, as well as most of the game's promotional materials, the starting screen, and the second stage's loading screen.
- Sexy Silhouette: The first stage, "Rumble in the Jungle!" has Abbey changing from her wetsuit to her white shirt while silhouetted under the moonlight.
- Smoke Out: Assassin X uses this method to repeatedly Teleport Spam himself around Sydney during their battle, the entire fight consisting of Assassin X throwing shurikens at Sydney, then a green smoke bomb, and then reappearing elsewhere to throw more shurikens, followed by another green smoke bomb, rinse and repeat.
- Sniper Rifle: Sydney Savage's favourite weapon, much like in the comics. Various missions with Sydney as the playable character will have her sniping Hammer mooks before they could even see her.
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Happens several times in the final level, as Abby gets a little too sweary for a T rated game.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Assassin X doesn't die in the game like he does in the comics, surviving his duel against Sydney. But then he sorta disappears for the rest of the game, for reasons unexplained.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: JC briefly suffers this fate at the start of "Bustin' Out" after she gets captured alive by Assassin X and subsequently tied down by Dr. Kharnov who intends to "extract" information from the Danger Girls out of her. But she managed to overpower Kharnov when he accidentally left a long syringe within her reach.Doctor Kharnov: Maybe you'd prefer... the probing device?
- Teen Superspy: JC, at all of 18, is a member of an elite special ops group.
- Time Bomb:
- The oil rig in "Rigged to Blow" and "Caution: Curves Ahead" have bombs installed all over, and besides killing Hammer goons and saving hostages, players as JC have to diffuse them as well.
- The final level, "Countdown to Danger", have Abbey installing timed IEDs all over the ancient temple used as Hammer's headquarters in order to take them down for good. And the final cutscene have Natassia, falling off a ledge after being defeated by Abbey in a brief boss battle, trying to get up her feet only to see a time bomb next to her face. BOOM.
- Tranquillizer Dart: For Sydney's London assignment, she's given a tranquilizer gun instead of lethal firearms, since her mission have her infiltrating the British Museum and her opponents are security guards just doing their jobs.
- The Voice: What Johnny Barracuda is regulated to, as he is Abby's Voice with an Internet Connection in "Dangerous Discoveries" but otherwise never shows up.
- Vulnerable Civilians: The oil rig workers in "Rigged to Blow" and "Caution: Curves Ahead" can be killed in the crossfire, and if four workers died in either, the mission then ends in failure. In fact, early in "Curves Ahead" players as Sydney needs to purposely get hit by gunfire to prevent a hostage from being executed! (then again the mooks she kill will drop health packs, which heals her after the shootout)
- World of Action Girls: It's a game called Danger Girl, so yes, all the playable characters are ass-kickers. Slightly subverted with Natassia, which the game likes to portray as a Dark Action Girl, but thanks to Adaptational Wimp she's hardly a significant threat.
- Wrench Wench: JC the teen genius and expert mechanic made solely for the game, who's introduced in the opening cinematics taking down enemy soldiers with a Wrench Whack. Sadly she doesn't do anything of the sort in-game.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: When Abbey activates the lights in Donavin's secret bedroom in his mansion, all she can respond with is an incredulous "Oh, my God."
