Austin and Steve (L-R) on the cover... yes, the game named it's characters Austin and Steve.
The Mark is a low-budget First-Person Shooter developed by T7Games, a rather short-lived Polish company, made back when Tactical Shooters are dominating the market.
When Ilya Rakov, the son of Russian billionaire and Arms Dealer Aleksandr Rakov decides to expand his network by purchasing a two superweapons - a nuclear warhead and a carrier rocket - and selling it to the highest bidder in the terrorist supermarket, Covert Ops Elite Steve Fletcher is sent by his superiors to recover the weapons. But as it turns out, another specialist, the mercenary Austin Hawke, has been assigned for the exact same mission as well.
Due to having two characters, the game offers both single and multi-player campaigns, with players assuming either as Steve or Austin, both having different equipment types and varied gameplay routes.A few other modes, including Death Match or Map Control, are also available.
Let's blow that bridge. I don't think that guy could fly!
- Abandoned Mine: The terrorists uses one as a secret hiding spot for their nuclear payload, which Steven and Austin infiltrates. It quickly leads to a shootout with parked minecarts as barricades.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Austin and Steve infiltrates the hull of a terrorist-occupied ship via the ventilation shaft, to stop the warhead's launch.
- Bad Guys Play Pool: In the middle of the terrorist's desert base somewhere in the Middle East, where every room otherwise looks the same, Steve and Austin randomly comes across a well-furnished billards room, complete with two pool tables in it's centre.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: When Ilya finds out Austin and Steve have raided one of his bases, he makes this rather ridiculous threat while ordering his mooks to hunt the heores down.Get Fletch and Hawke! Get Fletch and Hawke!
Get them alive, I want to feed them to the fish. Piece by piece! - Deadpan Snarker: Austin is clearly the bigger, happy-go-lucky snarker among the two. Expect him to drop quips regularly, in and out of cutscenes.Steve: [regarding the nukes] This goddamn thing won't be stopped! We'd better run!
Austin: You can be so bright sometimes. - Empty Quiver: Two of them, a stolen nuclear warhead and a carrier rocket developed by Iraqi scientists under Ilya's payroll, and they're on the loose.
- Fighting Your Friend: Due to a last-minute revelation that Austin is working for Ilya Rakov's father, Aleksander, the game's finale culminates into Steve and Austin fighting each other in a Fighting the Lancer moment (said lancer being the character not in control of the player at the time).
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: This gem from Austin, king of the snarkers (and probably the only good thing in the game).Steve: You're shitting me!
Austin: I fertilize you not. - It's Quiet… Too Quiet: The cutscene where Steve's sister, Sandy, a fellow soldier assigned on a different mission gets abducted, have this happening when one of her sergeant tells her "it's kind of quiet here". Moments after she remarks, "Too quiet..." comes a terrorist ambush that kills her team and have her captured alive.
- Middle Eastern Terrorists: The insurgents working under Ilya's payroll appears to be from said region, being clad in turbans and face-conceiling veils, besides the backstory mentioning how Illya is working with an Iraqi scientist on one of his superweapons.
- Multiple Endings: There are three endings in total: If the player is Austin in the final battle then he wins and leaves Steve heavily wounded so Illya can escape while if the player is Steve then after killing Austin they'll find Illya trying to escape in a helicopter with him either succeeding or dying depending on if the player grabs the rocket launcher and manages to blow up his helicopter or not.
- Punny Name: The game's leads are named Steve and Austin. That doesn't sound familiar at all.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The dynamic shared between the two playable characters in cutscenes. Hot-headed, quick-triggered Steve being the red, while smug, suave Austin is the blue.
- Skewed Priorities: When realizing a nuclear warhead is ready to be activated and will destroy London in less than two days.Austin: Christ. In forty hours, the city of London will cease to exist. Including selected suburbs, and my treasured freehold townhouse. And I just bought new furniture!
Steve: What? - Sniper Rifle: Austin has one in his arsenal to snipe terrorists from a distance, befitting an ex-SAS operative.
- Stop, or I Will Shoot!: How Steve and Austin first met in the opening cutscene - Austin rapelling down a warehouse with his M16 machine-gun at ready, only to stare down Steve's gunbarrel.Steve: I said, introduce yourself. [nudges gun at Austin]
Austin: Austin Hawke, at your service. Stop pointing that at me. - Suicide Attack: Suicide bombers, who charges at the player(s) while wearing an explosive vest, though they can be crippled by shooting the legs and letting them explode a distance away.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Steve and Austin really doesn't want to be on the same team, but when the world is at stake - especially after the terrorists abducts Steve's sister - they'll have to work together, like it or not.
