YMMV / WinBack

• Accidental Innuendo: The team sent to handle a terrorist threat is known as the Special Covert Actions Team. The initials spell out a word with a few wildly different definitions: the act of moving quickly ('scoot' is a derivation of this), a term for animal droppings, a musical term (see Scatting)... and most infamously a shorthand for something that is explicitly NSFW.
• Complete Monster: Cecile Carlyle is Kenneth Coleman's murderous right-hand man in the Crying Lions. Assisting in the violent takeover of the Westham Fortress housing the GULF Satellite's control center, Cecile cheerfully murders SCAT commando Matt Brown before ordering the destruction of Westham's office complex, disregarding any of his own men who would've been killed in the explosion. Encountering a mortally wounded Law Bruford, Cecile executes him despite Law no longer posing a threat. In the best ending path, Cecile captures SCAT commando Lisa Roberts before ordering Jean-Luc Cougar to present himself lest he kill her, and then proceeds to kill Jean-Luc's and Lisa's friend Jake Hudson. Turning on Kenneth, Cecile shoots him In the Back multiple times even as he lay dying, before threatening to fire the satellite again unless he's given 100 million dollars; a threat Cecile intends on carrying out even after he's given the ransom. A psychopath with no care for the Sarcozian rebellion, Cecile openly delights in how nothing makes him happier than knowing he ruined someone else's day.
• Gameplay Derailment: The general consensus people have found once push comes to shove is that getting the Good Ending requires throwing the game's own principles out the window. Whereas in a regular playthrough you might Take Cover! and try to carefully pick out your targets before making precise shots, having to effectively Speed Run the game results in most players bumrushing through stages, skirting around Artificial Stupidity and then mowing down foes where they can afford to up close with minimal risk of inaccuracy. Boss fights that are supposed to be cat-and-mouse encounters devolve into circling and popping them over and over.
• Iron Woobie: No matter the ending, Jean-Luc Cougar has a lot to unpack. His handgun is the last reminder of his brother Alan, who is presumed dead after going missing in a battle as part of Navy Special Forces, and this is before Operation Winback puts him through the wringer. After the team's chopper crashes on the way to Westham, he first reunites with Matt, who ends up dying before his eyes moments later. His reunion with Tom also doesn't last long, since Tom dies right after Jean-Luc and Jake finished defusing the bombs scattered across the building housing the express elevator. Tom managed to discover that elevator's passcode before he died, but Jean-Luc fails to secure that elevator after defeating Ryan because Ryan primes a grenade to blow up both himself and that elevator's control panel. On his way to the freight elevator, he finds both a dying engineer and the corpse of Steve, the person who had overseen Jean-Luc's training in the tutorial. At the freight elevator, a wounded Law sends Jean-Luc ahead since he has to operate the elevator and hold back the terrorists, only to be executed by Cecile. After meeting up with Mike, he learns that Jake and Lisa are being cornered by the terrorists, then sees Banderas kill Mike after Mike opens the way forward. From here, the three routes branch off.
  • In the Good route, he watches Jake die after they try to rescue Lisa from Cecile and Deathmask. At the Control Center, he mortally wounds Dan, who admitted to causing the chopper's engine failure and murdering Tom and Steve. In his dying breaths, Dan reveals his Sarcozian heritage, his blood relation to Kenneth, the US Government's involvement in quelling the rebellion that was supported by the majority of the Sarcozian population, and the deaths of his Navy Special Forces teammates when they were on a mission eight years back to aid the Sarcozian government (implying that he knew about Alan being dead the entire time). After taking down Cecile, who blew up Dan's corpse with a grenade, he has Lisa destroy the Gulf System, believing the world isn't ready for that kind of power after it's already claimed so many lives. He, Lisa, and Keith are the only survivors, and he alone knows the full truth of the mission.
  • In the Normal route, the White House has been obliterated. Most of the Good route also applies here, but he never gets to take down Cecile, who is implied to have escaped offscreen. The killer of Matt, Law, and Jake gets away, and everyone in the White House has perished.
  • In the Bad route, he finds Lisa and Jake's corpses on his way to the Control Center. At the Center, he learns from Cecile that the Gulf System is now space junk after obliterating both the White House and the Pentagon. When he tries to take Kenneth Coleman into custody, Kenneth commits suicide. He and Keith are the only survivors of the mission, which rings hollow because of the innumerable casualties: not only their fellow teammates, but also hundreds of thousands of innocent bystanders.
  • The Iron part is the fact that Jean-Luc had to take all this in while leading Operation Winback, which makes him especially impressive on the Good route because he was at the mercy of the timer for most of it.
• Narm Charm: If you view the story with the expectations of a B-Movie plot, the English voices in the PS2 version actually work as the comedic flourish on top.
• Nintendo Hard: Jean-Luc is as vulnerable to locational damage (and consequently headshots) as the enemies he's firing at, can't take much damage, and can carry only one spare magazine's worth of ammo for his SMG and Shotgun unless you grab the hidden ammunition pouches. Your enemies have unlimited ammo, absurdly pinpoint accuracy if Jean-Luc is ever exposed and standing still, and the frequent element of surprise. If you want to reach the Good ending, you have to exploit the fact that no one can lead their shots and shoot every enemy in between their bursts of fire or just outright run past them while taking as little damage as possible, as the Take Cover! system becomes something of an afterthought and a hindering crutch. This also isn't covering the fact that the controls are wonky as hell regardless of whether you're playing the N64 or PS2 version, and plenty of traps and explosive-laden areas can deal instant death if you do one thing wrong or Jean-Luc doesn't crawl under a death laser just right.
• Once Original, Now Overdone: This N64 game was the pioneer of all cover-based shooting. While its slow-paced tactical gameplay is still somewhat unique, its cover mechanics have aged extremely poorly.
• Player Punch: The deaths of your teammates, the scene with the dying engineer in the sewers, and the Bad ending.
• Porting Disaster: While the Switch-Online port plays fine overall, the port not utilizing the Controller Pak means the only way to save is through save states.
• Sequelitis: The second game, Winback 2: Project Poseidon, wasn't as successful as the first game.
• So Bad, It's Good: The PS2 version is well-known for its not-so-great English voice acting. Despite this, it was well-received and was considered to be a lot better than the voiceless N64 version.
• Superlative Dubbing: The PS2 version also has a Japanese dub as an option, and it certainly sounds less wooden than the English one.

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