When i first started playing i thought it could be some sort of underrated gem, as there's so much that this game gets SO RIGHT about how open world shooting games should be like it's honestly upsetting it is this unpolished and janky. Starting with the tone, it's brilliant; has the same feel as those dumb 80's action flicks, with the goofy dialog, the cheesy aesthetic, the story nobody cares about, and the self awareness of how stupid it all really is, doing its best to focus on what people really come to this experiences for: escapism (and cool stunts). That philosophy also applies to the game design, which has the controversial chaos system, which for me was a great idea, for it makes for one of the very few open world games I've known that openly encourages wrecking shit up and exploring the world, instead of shying away from it by making it optional, yet, for a number of reasons, it makes these activities feel more chore-y than fun.
The first one of these reasons are the missions, specially the side missions necessary to rack up chaos in order to advance the story missions; they're mostly just terrible, with dialog so inept you might as well skip it and uninspired structures with little to no variety: the slightly better ones, the stronghold missions, all have exactly the same "protect hacker while advancing through" motif, while the rest are just different flavors of assassination, destruction or dreadful tailing/escort missions (barring a few exceptions, like the honestly great 'Lost' pastiche), which feel like padding on better games yet make for the bulk of this one.
The world itself feeling so cold and uninviting doesn't make things better, if it had more noticeable landmarks, more diverse locales and just were more interesting as whole it would be such a joy to go around wreaking havoc, instead it's just too empty to even care about, with too many copy-pasted assets and a generic setting. It has still another great idea in the collectible boxes of cash and armor/health upgrades, which kinda reminded me of Zelda's heart containers, but it's yet another cool concept badly implemented, with way too many of the crates spread out, and not too much of a difference is felt by getting them.
Yet, what really saves this game from complete mediocrity is its moment to moment gameplay; it has pretty satisfying TPS combat, not cover based and ammo-wealthy like most games of this kind, which nicely creates tension, with a really cool dual-wielding system that lets you combine different weapons, displaying the knack this game has for stimulating improvisation and creativity in solving scenarios, that is exemplified in the wealth of vehicles and gadgets that can be used, with some even inside bases, waiting to be used against their own, and, obviously, the grappling hook/parachute combo is endless fun, adding a slew of traversal and combat possibilities and a sense of freedom and joy in movement that most open world games, specially of its era, can't even touch.
The possibilities are limited, sure, since the mechanics aren't really deep enough to make the game more than a poor man's Metal Gear Solid V, but the intent and ideas are there, some that even predate a lot of the games credited to "revamping" the open world formula, so it makes me think if it had a larger budget and a bit more polish in some areas, it could be one of the best open world games of its era, maybe all time. In its state, though, its still a fun romp that can still scratch an itch that not many games of its kind do.
The first one of these reasons are the missions, specially the side missions necessary to rack up chaos in order to advance the story missions; they're mostly just terrible, with dialog so inept you might as well skip it and uninspired structures with little to no variety: the slightly better ones, the stronghold missions, all have exactly the same "protect hacker while advancing through" motif, while the rest are just different flavors of assassination, destruction or dreadful tailing/escort missions (barring a few exceptions, like the honestly great 'Lost' pastiche), which feel like padding on better games yet make for the bulk of this one.
The world itself feeling so cold and uninviting doesn't make things better, if it had more noticeable landmarks, more diverse locales and just were more interesting as whole it would be such a joy to go around wreaking havoc, instead it's just too empty to even care about, with too many copy-pasted assets and a generic setting. It has still another great idea in the collectible boxes of cash and armor/health upgrades, which kinda reminded me of Zelda's heart containers, but it's yet another cool concept badly implemented, with way too many of the crates spread out, and not too much of a difference is felt by getting them.
Yet, what really saves this game from complete mediocrity is its moment to moment gameplay; it has pretty satisfying TPS combat, not cover based and ammo-wealthy like most games of this kind, which nicely creates tension, with a really cool dual-wielding system that lets you combine different weapons, displaying the knack this game has for stimulating improvisation and creativity in solving scenarios, that is exemplified in the wealth of vehicles and gadgets that can be used, with some even inside bases, waiting to be used against their own, and, obviously, the grappling hook/parachute combo is endless fun, adding a slew of traversal and combat possibilities and a sense of freedom and joy in movement that most open world games, specially of its era, can't even touch.
The possibilities are limited, sure, since the mechanics aren't really deep enough to make the game more than a poor man's Metal Gear Solid V, but the intent and ideas are there, some that even predate a lot of the games credited to "revamping" the open world formula, so it makes me think if it had a larger budget and a bit more polish in some areas, it could be one of the best open world games of its era, maybe all time. In its state, though, its still a fun romp that can still scratch an itch that not many games of its kind do.