This is one of those cases where I'm much more harsh than the score would justify because the game that exists is overshadowed by what it wants to be.
From what I can see, this game's flaws are some of the most famous things about it at this point, and justifiably so - the dull gameplay, the way it smugly berates you for merely playing the game, the ham-fisted messaging. I feel like it's harder to see past the flaws now, since nobody playing in 2021 is coming in blind.
I still have a special place in my heart for this game because I remember having no prior exposure and being pleasantly surprised, but the need to come in blind betrays the fact that the game relies a lot on its twists as opposed to any serious examination of its own themes. You will never successfully guilt me for playing a video game the way it was intended, and I think the devs overplayed their hand a bit in responding that you can "just stop playing" if you didn't want to be railroaded into doing shitty things. It makes the game feel like a set of shallow "gotcha!" moments - trying to demonstrate that virtual violence is a real problem by making you do shitty things and then calling you out for doing them. There are impactful ways to make this point and this isn't one of them.
Despite being the second FPS retelling of Heart of Darkness in 3 years, the story is genuinely interesting when it's not trying to antagonize the player. It spends so much time trying to do that, though, that it shoots itself in the foot, and the gameplay that's left over is NOT good enough to carry the rest of the experience - and don't tell me that's the point, because if they deliberately made the combat weaker because of ~themes~ they wouldn't have included a multiplayer mode where you can tear shit up with your pals.
From what I can see, this game's flaws are some of the most famous things about it at this point, and justifiably so - the dull gameplay, the way it smugly berates you for merely playing the game, the ham-fisted messaging. I feel like it's harder to see past the flaws now, since nobody playing in 2021 is coming in blind.
I still have a special place in my heart for this game because I remember having no prior exposure and being pleasantly surprised, but the need to come in blind betrays the fact that the game relies a lot on its twists as opposed to any serious examination of its own themes. You will never successfully guilt me for playing a video game the way it was intended, and I think the devs overplayed their hand a bit in responding that you can "just stop playing" if you didn't want to be railroaded into doing shitty things. It makes the game feel like a set of shallow "gotcha!" moments - trying to demonstrate that virtual violence is a real problem by making you do shitty things and then calling you out for doing them. There are impactful ways to make this point and this isn't one of them.
Despite being the second FPS retelling of Heart of Darkness in 3 years, the story is genuinely interesting when it's not trying to antagonize the player. It spends so much time trying to do that, though, that it shoots itself in the foot, and the gameplay that's left over is NOT good enough to carry the rest of the experience - and don't tell me that's the point, because if they deliberately made the combat weaker because of ~themes~ they wouldn't have included a multiplayer mode where you can tear shit up with your pals.