When talking about first-person shooters, most gamers think of franchises like DOOM, Call of Duty, or Halo. But tucked away in gaming’s weirder corners lies a short-lived series with a strangely unique legacy, Ecks vs. Sever. It’s a title many Aussie gamers might only vaguely recall, if at all, but its story is as unusual as it is intriguing, tying together early handheld FPS innovation and a forgotten Hollywood bomb.
Origins on the Game Boy Advance
In 2001, Ecks vs. Sever was released for the Game Boy Advance (GBA), developed by Crawfish Interactive and published by BAM! Entertainment. It was one of the first FPS games on Nintendo’s handheld, pushing the GBA’s hardware in ways that hadn’t really been attempted before. Despite its limited graphics and hardware restrictions, the game featured full 3D environments, split campaigns for both main characters (Ecks and Sever), and support for multiplayer via link cable.
Interestingly, the original Ecks vs. Sever game was not based on a movie. In fact, it predated the film it would eventually tie into, meaning the game was based on an early draft of the script, a bizarre reversal of the usual game-to-film pipeline. As noted by IGN’s review of the 2001 release, the game was praised for its impressive technical feats on the GBA but criticised for simplistic level design.
Still, for Aussie kids without access to PC FPS titles, it was a fascinating glimpse into a genre rarely seen on handhelds at the time.
A Movie Tie-In to a Box Office Bomb
The oddest twist in the Ecks vs. Sever saga came in 2002 when the film Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever was released, starring Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu as the titular characters. The film was a critical and commercial disaster, currently holding a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and is frequently cited among the worst action films ever made.
Despite the film’s catastrophic reception, its release spurred the development of a second GBA game: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Once again developed by Crawfish Interactive, this version featured improved graphics, smarter AI, and missions more closely aligned with the final film’s script. Ironically, the game fared better with critics than the film it was meant to promote.
The End of a Series No One Asked For
Following the poor performance of the film and the modest success of the GBA games, the Ecks vs. Sever franchise quietly vanished. There were no follow-ups, no console or PC ports, and no digital re-releases. A potential third game, Ecks vs. Sever 3, was in the works but never made it to shelves. Details about that cancelled title can be found at Unseen64’s archival page.
Today, the only way to experience the games is through original cartridges or emulation. Yet despite its obscurity, the series maintains a small cult following, particularly among handheld enthusiasts and retro FPS fans.
In a retrospective by Modern Vintage Gamer, the original game is referred to as a “technical marvel” for the GBA, using raycasting techniques similar to Wolfenstein 3D to simulate 3D environments on hardware that wasn’t built for it.
Why It Still Matters
The Ecks vs. Sever games may seem like a footnote in gaming history, but they’re worth remembering for several reasons. They demonstrate:
- How game development can precede and even outlive a film tie-in
- That handheld consoles like the GBA could be pushed far beyond expectations
- That a technically ambitious game can come from even the most forgettable source material
For many Australian gamers growing up in the early 2000s, Ecks vs. Sever was a curiosity, something you might rent from Video Ezy or pick up at a swap meet. It stood out for being unlike anything else on handhelds at the time and gave us a rare taste of FPS gameplay on the go, long before Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG Mobile made it mainstream.
Final Thoughts
In a sea of licensed games, Ecks vs. Sever stands out as one of the strangest. A game based on a script that changed drastically, followed by a better sequel based on a terrible movie, and then, nothing. No franchise, no ports, no reboots.
And yet, Ecks vs. Sever left behind something rare: an example of a game franchise that was technically ambitious, strangely timed, and remembered more for its bold choices than its commercial success.
If you’ve still got a GBA lying around, maybe it’s time to give it a dust-off and revisit this oddity of the early 2000s. Or, at the very least, load it up in an emulator and marvel at what developers could squeeze out of a tiny cartridge and a 32-bit CPU
