My friend got this game, so I played it at his house, then I picked up the demo and played that extensively. Here's my analysis of the game:
Pros: Nice graphics, real time lighting effects (for a console port)
Open ended mission structure
Good variety of weapons
Cons: Dumb as hell enemies
Very easy to beat
Requires absolutely no stealth whatsoever, you can run in guns blazing and escape unscathed
Did I mention the dumb as hell enemies?
When I first booted up the game, my first thought was "hey, nice graphics for a console port." And they are. Crisp, nicely textured levels, well animated characters, and real time lighting are all prominent (albiet some wierd clipping errors were present). Then I ran outside only to get the message "Your cover has been blown!" So I figured this is gonna be a trial-and-error splinter cell-esque journey, as enemies start pouring out of buildings. Over 15 guys came to kill me, and I mowed them down after getting shot once or twice. I said "no, it couldn't be that easy." So I tried it again on Professional. Yep, I lost maybe 1/4 of my health from mowing down a bunch of Ivans with a stolen AK-47.
That's not to say it couldn't turn into a decent run'n'gun shooter. I had a fun time shooting them all, with nicely animated deaths and realistic pools of blood. There's plenty of baddies to shoot, and a gigantic slew of weaponry, both conventional and improvised. Probably near 30 guns, as well as more sleuthy tools like Fiberwire, Poison, and my personal favorite, the Laxitive (i'm serious). You'll have absolutely no trouble getting these stealth tools to work, as the enemies are so stupid they'll never see you, which brings me to my next point.
These enemies are dumb. I mean really dumb. I've seen better AI in Goldeneye. I literally ran up to a soldier facing my way, walked around behind him, and strangled him with Fiberwire. I ran up to another soldier, ran in front of him so he had to stop walking, ran around him a few times, and a couple seconds after that he yelled and tried to shoot me. I shot a guy not more than two feet away from another one (with an Ak-47, no less) and the second guy continued calmly walking around as I then turned my weapon on him. You'd be hard pressed to find worse AI...anywhere.
Finishing up, I was a bit disappointed. I found it fun that you can do stuff like poison food, then kill the cook, hide his body, dress up as him and feed the food to your victim. However, the AI is so completely braindead, you feel no satisfaction from completing a task. Add that to sometimes overly perceptive enemies (to the point where they see through your disguise...or walls) and it becomes more fun just to fill everybody with lead. A few other problems include the inability to jump- i'm serious. There is no jump command. At one point you have to walk along this big long walkway by the side of a train. The walkway is no more than 6 inches off the ground. But if you fall, you have to run all the way back to the beginning to climb up 6 inch stairs to get back on. Add that to a floaty grid based walking system (yeah, like Tomb Raider...seriously, when was the last time you played a real time game that wasn't vector based?) and sneaking around becomes difficult as well.
This game had a lot of potential that could be fixed by tweaking a few things- AI and movement, mainly. But the problems this game flung at me provided so severe that I had to rate it down. But if you don't care about stealth or AI and just want to run around blasting a whole lot of guys with an excellent variety of weaponry, this is your game. I score it:
62%
Pros: Nice graphics, real time lighting effects (for a console port)
Open ended mission structure
Good variety of weapons
Cons: Dumb as hell enemies
Very easy to beat
Requires absolutely no stealth whatsoever, you can run in guns blazing and escape unscathed
Did I mention the dumb as hell enemies?
When I first booted up the game, my first thought was "hey, nice graphics for a console port." And they are. Crisp, nicely textured levels, well animated characters, and real time lighting are all prominent (albiet some wierd clipping errors were present). Then I ran outside only to get the message "Your cover has been blown!" So I figured this is gonna be a trial-and-error splinter cell-esque journey, as enemies start pouring out of buildings. Over 15 guys came to kill me, and I mowed them down after getting shot once or twice. I said "no, it couldn't be that easy." So I tried it again on Professional. Yep, I lost maybe 1/4 of my health from mowing down a bunch of Ivans with a stolen AK-47.
That's not to say it couldn't turn into a decent run'n'gun shooter. I had a fun time shooting them all, with nicely animated deaths and realistic pools of blood. There's plenty of baddies to shoot, and a gigantic slew of weaponry, both conventional and improvised. Probably near 30 guns, as well as more sleuthy tools like Fiberwire, Poison, and my personal favorite, the Laxitive (i'm serious). You'll have absolutely no trouble getting these stealth tools to work, as the enemies are so stupid they'll never see you, which brings me to my next point.
These enemies are dumb. I mean really dumb. I've seen better AI in Goldeneye. I literally ran up to a soldier facing my way, walked around behind him, and strangled him with Fiberwire. I ran up to another soldier, ran in front of him so he had to stop walking, ran around him a few times, and a couple seconds after that he yelled and tried to shoot me. I shot a guy not more than two feet away from another one (with an Ak-47, no less) and the second guy continued calmly walking around as I then turned my weapon on him. You'd be hard pressed to find worse AI...anywhere.
Finishing up, I was a bit disappointed. I found it fun that you can do stuff like poison food, then kill the cook, hide his body, dress up as him and feed the food to your victim. However, the AI is so completely braindead, you feel no satisfaction from completing a task. Add that to sometimes overly perceptive enemies (to the point where they see through your disguise...or walls) and it becomes more fun just to fill everybody with lead. A few other problems include the inability to jump- i'm serious. There is no jump command. At one point you have to walk along this big long walkway by the side of a train. The walkway is no more than 6 inches off the ground. But if you fall, you have to run all the way back to the beginning to climb up 6 inch stairs to get back on. Add that to a floaty grid based walking system (yeah, like Tomb Raider...seriously, when was the last time you played a real time game that wasn't vector based?) and sneaking around becomes difficult as well.
This game had a lot of potential that could be fixed by tweaking a few things- AI and movement, mainly. But the problems this game flung at me provided so severe that I had to rate it down. But if you don't care about stealth or AI and just want to run around blasting a whole lot of guys with an excellent variety of weaponry, this is your game. I score it:
62%
Comment