Playtime: 6 Hours
Score: 6/10
I played this game at a friends house back when it originally came out and thought it was awesome looking. A first person Gears of War with how the character models and guns looked. Playing it now fully on PC however was a very mixed experience.
To start with what I did like, first off the voice acting is top notch with Steve Blum and Jennifer Hale voicing the lead characters. Steven Blum especially was my favorite as the main character Grasyon. The man was born to play grizzled soldier types. The graphics look very good with its Gears of War like aesthetic, though this "remastered" edition barely looks better then the original port. The game has aged well though with its art style. The general combat and gameplay is super fun with all the cool weapons you can use and how you can use the environment to kill your enemies. Its all very well done. Plus there's the Skillshot system that rewards you with points the more creative you get with how you dispatch enemies.
The best part of the game is definitely the story and writing as it really was engaging and I wanted to see where it all ended up. Though I did start to get bored of all the dick jokes after a while. The game does end on a cliffhanger though, which I did know going in beforehand, but since there doesn't seem like there will ever be a sequel to this, it overall left me feeling very unsatisfied especially since the game is rather short and I only cared about the campaign really. Stick around till the end of the credits as there is a post credit scene, or don't since there's no sequel?
To start with my negatives from the gameplay side which is a lot. Firstly, was the overuse of QTEs and button prompts which never ceased to be annoying. This was the time where developers were really pushing these mechanics in games, and I have never been a fan of it. You can't jump in the game, and have to do a bottom prompt to vault over things which is fine, but you can't go 10 steps in levels without running into one of these things which gets tedious. And things like climbing across rails is also button prompts you have to press throughout you climbing across rather then you just grabbing on and moving naturally. This also comes into the final boss fight which is also a QTE segment which is really bad since they did such a good job building up the villain in the story, I wanted to blast his head off, but I can't even do that without the game holding my hand and refusing to let go.
The skillshot system was also disappointing in that its very limited in what you can spend points on. You can increase how much ammo you can carry and unlock an alternate firing mode for the each of the weapons and thats it. It would have been cool if you could upgrade damage, reload speed, accuracy etc.. You don't need full weapon customization, but at least being able to upgrade them more would have been cool. The enemies are also really annoying in this game in how there are multiple enemy types that will run right up to you, which means you need to weapons like the shotgun always equipped. You can kick enemies, but its only going to knock them back unless you kick them into hazards like spikes or electrical currents. The enemies also are complete bullet sponges even on the easier difficulties. At one point there was a one shotgun enemy I was fighting and it took 4 or 5 blasts from my own shotgun at close range to kill him which was just terrible. Eventually towards the end I just spammed the leashes ultimate ability that would kill multiple enemies at once because I just didn't want to deal with them. The leash is cool weapon in that you can pull enemies towards you but later they introduce enemies that can both dodge the leash and the auto-seeking sniper rifle rounds? Okay bro.
You can also only carry 3 weapons which sucks and annoyingly, when your at a drop kit that you use to upgrade weapons and refill your ammo, if you refill for a gun you don't have equipped it will automatically equip that weapon which was very annoying. You can unlock the ability to carry all weapons in new game plus mode, but that's obviously only after you beat the main campaign. You can replay to get any killshot challenges you missed the first time and when you do for each weapon you unlock infinite ammo which is cool. The only problem with this is your constantly being attacked by multiple enemies at once and it can be a bit hard to spend time trying to perform a specific kill when you got 10 guys all attacking you at once. Another missed opportunity was co-op which would have been perfect for this game, especially since throughout the campaign you are basically always accompanied by an NPC. It would made replaying the game a lot more fun.
Lastly, this is a small thing, but whenever character sprints the camera shakes which I guess is done to be more realistic, but this at times gave me motion sickness. There's no option to turn this off or to keep the camera stable when sprinting which I was not a fan of.
Overall the game is decent but some of the gameplay design decisions the devs made, make it age badly compared to things like the story and graphics being top notch. I'd recommend it for the story, but with the cliffhanger ending, and there being no sequel, it makes me want to say skip it.
All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 6/10
I played this game at a friends house back when it originally came out and thought it was awesome looking. A first person Gears of War with how the character models and guns looked. Playing it now fully on PC however was a very mixed experience.
To start with what I did like, first off the voice acting is top notch with Steve Blum and Jennifer Hale voicing the lead characters. Steven Blum especially was my favorite as the main character Grasyon. The man was born to play grizzled soldier types. The graphics look very good with its Gears of War like aesthetic, though this "remastered" edition barely looks better then the original port. The game has aged well though with its art style. The general combat and gameplay is super fun with all the cool weapons you can use and how you can use the environment to kill your enemies. Its all very well done. Plus there's the Skillshot system that rewards you with points the more creative you get with how you dispatch enemies.
The best part of the game is definitely the story and writing as it really was engaging and I wanted to see where it all ended up. Though I did start to get bored of all the dick jokes after a while. The game does end on a cliffhanger though, which I did know going in beforehand, but since there doesn't seem like there will ever be a sequel to this, it overall left me feeling very unsatisfied especially since the game is rather short and I only cared about the campaign really. Stick around till the end of the credits as there is a post credit scene, or don't since there's no sequel?
To start with my negatives from the gameplay side which is a lot. Firstly, was the overuse of QTEs and button prompts which never ceased to be annoying. This was the time where developers were really pushing these mechanics in games, and I have never been a fan of it. You can't jump in the game, and have to do a bottom prompt to vault over things which is fine, but you can't go 10 steps in levels without running into one of these things which gets tedious. And things like climbing across rails is also button prompts you have to press throughout you climbing across rather then you just grabbing on and moving naturally. This also comes into the final boss fight which is also a QTE segment which is really bad since they did such a good job building up the villain in the story, I wanted to blast his head off, but I can't even do that without the game holding my hand and refusing to let go.
The skillshot system was also disappointing in that its very limited in what you can spend points on. You can increase how much ammo you can carry and unlock an alternate firing mode for the each of the weapons and thats it. It would have been cool if you could upgrade damage, reload speed, accuracy etc.. You don't need full weapon customization, but at least being able to upgrade them more would have been cool. The enemies are also really annoying in this game in how there are multiple enemy types that will run right up to you, which means you need to weapons like the shotgun always equipped. You can kick enemies, but its only going to knock them back unless you kick them into hazards like spikes or electrical currents. The enemies also are complete bullet sponges even on the easier difficulties. At one point there was a one shotgun enemy I was fighting and it took 4 or 5 blasts from my own shotgun at close range to kill him which was just terrible. Eventually towards the end I just spammed the leashes ultimate ability that would kill multiple enemies at once because I just didn't want to deal with them. The leash is cool weapon in that you can pull enemies towards you but later they introduce enemies that can both dodge the leash and the auto-seeking sniper rifle rounds? Okay bro.
You can also only carry 3 weapons which sucks and annoyingly, when your at a drop kit that you use to upgrade weapons and refill your ammo, if you refill for a gun you don't have equipped it will automatically equip that weapon which was very annoying. You can unlock the ability to carry all weapons in new game plus mode, but that's obviously only after you beat the main campaign. You can replay to get any killshot challenges you missed the first time and when you do for each weapon you unlock infinite ammo which is cool. The only problem with this is your constantly being attacked by multiple enemies at once and it can be a bit hard to spend time trying to perform a specific kill when you got 10 guys all attacking you at once. Another missed opportunity was co-op which would have been perfect for this game, especially since throughout the campaign you are basically always accompanied by an NPC. It would made replaying the game a lot more fun.
Lastly, this is a small thing, but whenever character sprints the camera shakes which I guess is done to be more realistic, but this at times gave me motion sickness. There's no option to turn this off or to keep the camera stable when sprinting which I was not a fan of.
Overall the game is decent but some of the gameplay design decisions the devs made, make it age badly compared to things like the story and graphics being top notch. I'd recommend it for the story, but with the cliffhanger ending, and there being no sequel, it makes me want to say skip it.
All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/