I remember this game being worse? Why was this so good? It's a boring shooter about aliens, it did not have to go this hard.

The quality of the environments, animations, combat, they're all so fun and kinetic, it carries the whole game's runtime, as well as a good weapon variety with some cool abilities. Course it still suffers from issues like getting dull beacuse it's just shoot shoot bang bang, but who am I to complain.

The survival modes are also a nice addition, and god damn do I wish games had coop like this one does, what happened to that practice?

Honestly, I'm conflicted. I really want to just embrace this game with open arms, but it does a lot of things that make the whole ordeal such a frustrating experience for me.

First, the pros. The atmosphere is absolutely brilliant and do a great job of making the environments feel ominous and creepy. The soundtrack just oozes with pure dread and tracks that give off an air of beauty about them. The level designs are great and there's a lot of incentive for you to explore its surroundings, just to see how weird and twisted each location can get.

However, the second half of the game is where the problems lie. First they force this painfully stupid escort mission on you with one of the worst AI's that rivals even that of WoW Classic's escort quests. Then they force you into the same levels all over again with a few things switched around. Except this time, the ghosts becomes ten times more annoying and it makes you even less incentivized to explore. Plus, who's bright idea was it to include invincible ghosts anyways? They were creepy at first, but when the second half came about, they were more annoying than anything else.

It's decent overall and I'd say the atmosphere and the strong story really manage to save it from seeping into being a disappointing entry in the franchise.

A hugely endearing jank-fest from the days when the biggest companies in the business could afford to put major weight behind strange, experimental curios. An awful factory level at the mid-point drags it down, but otherwise, this is a riot. At just two or three hours long, there's no reason not to just sit down and give this thing a go.

I genuinely think a sequel would be an incredible time if they worked around some of the more awkward bits of design here. Unfortunately, the absurd cost of AAA development means that throwing the equivalent weight behind a sequel is a practical impossibility, which is just yet more reason to dismantle the entire games industry and start over from scratch.

It's also one of the most aesthetically pleasing games ever made and I'm not even remotely kidding. Possibly my favourite menus...ever????

Games don't have to be good to be great.