On release I saw all the negative press and reactions, passing on it without much more thought and diving back into endless, blissful MGS4 sessions.
Some 14 years later - jaded from the rapidly declining state of the modern gaming industry - I found myself scooping up various physical copies of hidden gems for the PS3, throwing in Alone in the Dark for a couple of bucks.
Turns out you have to disregard the majority opinion if you want a title packed with fresh ideas.
The game is janky, the voice acting sits in the limbo between laughable and dull and the episodical structure with TV style recaps is a miss for me. The reward for giving it a spin is a game that offers you physics based puzzles, with some of them having multiple (even unintended) solutions, a real time inventory that has you looking down into your jacket, on the fly choice between first and third person, crafting that requires the actual components of what you are trying to make and not just some scrap metal, a dedicated button for closing your eyes and cruising through Central Park.
Aye, the story. A bunch of tropes, a hamfisted connection to the very first game in the franchise and some guy doing a Times New Roman T-Pose.
Some 14 years later - jaded from the rapidly declining state of the modern gaming industry - I found myself scooping up various physical copies of hidden gems for the PS3, throwing in Alone in the Dark for a couple of bucks.
Turns out you have to disregard the majority opinion if you want a title packed with fresh ideas.
The game is janky, the voice acting sits in the limbo between laughable and dull and the episodical structure with TV style recaps is a miss for me. The reward for giving it a spin is a game that offers you physics based puzzles, with some of them having multiple (even unintended) solutions, a real time inventory that has you looking down into your jacket, on the fly choice between first and third person, crafting that requires the actual components of what you are trying to make and not just some scrap metal, a dedicated button for closing your eyes and cruising through Central Park.
Aye, the story. A bunch of tropes, a hamfisted connection to the very first game in the franchise and some guy doing a Times New Roman T-Pose.