It's great fun if you can enjoy it for what it is - style over substance. There's nothing special about the gameplay or the narrative. It's all about the explosions and destruction with bullets, bodies and debris flying everywhere.
I'd argue it's best enjoyed on normal or even easy. This was the first FPS I ever played with a gamepad back in the day, so I sucked really bad and had a tough time. Eventually, I came back and beat it on the hardest difficulty, more to prove a point than anything else. On this last playthrough I played on normal again and found it pretty lenient, but in a good way. You can afford to be sloppy and just go in all guns blazing like it says on the back of the box. On the harder difficulties you can't carry health packs, so you are forced to go more slow and steady and pick off enemies from afar, which is not a fun way to play what is ultimately a power fantasy game. You also don't have to worry about mandatory collectibles which can disrupt the flow of the experience. Leave those for subsequent playthroughs, if you are the completionist type. The game's super short anyway.
The story is not very original or interesting. Something about a deep black ops conspiracy. They throw so much military jargon at you that it's a bit hard to follow. I do like the visual style of the live-action cutscenes, though. The orchestral score is used sparingly, but it's really good at building tension or creating an epic feel.
I've seen people make the claim that this is the best FPS on PS2. I don't know about that, but it might very well be the most technically impressive one. Yeah, the lighting is all baked and the destruction is pre-calculated, but it looks great in motion, especially for the time and hardware. I played in 480p (activated by holding X and triangle while the game boots) and it does have some slowdown during heavy scenes, but it's fairly minimal considering the quality of the visuals. There's a widescreen mode, but you should avoid it, because it's just cropped-in 4:3.
I'd argue it's best enjoyed on normal or even easy. This was the first FPS I ever played with a gamepad back in the day, so I sucked really bad and had a tough time. Eventually, I came back and beat it on the hardest difficulty, more to prove a point than anything else. On this last playthrough I played on normal again and found it pretty lenient, but in a good way. You can afford to be sloppy and just go in all guns blazing like it says on the back of the box. On the harder difficulties you can't carry health packs, so you are forced to go more slow and steady and pick off enemies from afar, which is not a fun way to play what is ultimately a power fantasy game. You also don't have to worry about mandatory collectibles which can disrupt the flow of the experience. Leave those for subsequent playthroughs, if you are the completionist type. The game's super short anyway.
The story is not very original or interesting. Something about a deep black ops conspiracy. They throw so much military jargon at you that it's a bit hard to follow. I do like the visual style of the live-action cutscenes, though. The orchestral score is used sparingly, but it's really good at building tension or creating an epic feel.
I've seen people make the claim that this is the best FPS on PS2. I don't know about that, but it might very well be the most technically impressive one. Yeah, the lighting is all baked and the destruction is pre-calculated, but it looks great in motion, especially for the time and hardware. I played in 480p (activated by holding X and triangle while the game boots) and it does have some slowdown during heavy scenes, but it's fairly minimal considering the quality of the visuals. There's a widescreen mode, but you should avoid it, because it's just cropped-in 4:3.