The seed of a decent idea buried under a pile of aggressively mediocre design concepts. I actually sort of appreciated the slow, plodding combat, but as with most Deck13 games, the overall aesthetic is so insipid that any minor pleasures are largely drowned out.
The interesting yet unrefined idea at the heart of this game is the dismemberment mechanic. Your melee attacks can target specific body parts and you can cut off various appendages in order to get better weapons and / or armor. This is fun at first, but eventually it becomes easy to spam, and the game ultimately doesn't do enough to build in complexity or alleviate the redundancy of repeatedly facing down the same basic enemy types (80% of the enemies in this game fall into one of two tired archetypes - there's quick-light-armor-man and slow-heavy-weapon-man).
Minor mechanical amusements aside, the narrative and aesthetic choices are consistently dull and uninspired. The story takes an extremely weak swing at Souls-style obliqueness, but ultimately ends up being bog standard sci-fi claptrap - it features some cartoonishly irresponsible corporate barons and A.I. run amuck, along with a smorgasbord of other well-trodden clichés.
I might've been able to partially look past the hackneyed narrative if it weren't for the fact that the dire lack of imagination is also reflected in the level and environmental design. After a tolerable start in a post-apocalyptic junkyard, most of the rest of the game takes place in a bland and anonymous maze of generic tech hallways. There's a decent diversion in a corporate suite towards the end, but that simply didn't make up for the confusion, the boredom, and the abject lack of interesting things to see. Skipping ahead to the more playable sequel is advisable.
The interesting yet unrefined idea at the heart of this game is the dismemberment mechanic. Your melee attacks can target specific body parts and you can cut off various appendages in order to get better weapons and / or armor. This is fun at first, but eventually it becomes easy to spam, and the game ultimately doesn't do enough to build in complexity or alleviate the redundancy of repeatedly facing down the same basic enemy types (80% of the enemies in this game fall into one of two tired archetypes - there's quick-light-armor-man and slow-heavy-weapon-man).
Minor mechanical amusements aside, the narrative and aesthetic choices are consistently dull and uninspired. The story takes an extremely weak swing at Souls-style obliqueness, but ultimately ends up being bog standard sci-fi claptrap - it features some cartoonishly irresponsible corporate barons and A.I. run amuck, along with a smorgasbord of other well-trodden clichés.
I might've been able to partially look past the hackneyed narrative if it weren't for the fact that the dire lack of imagination is also reflected in the level and environmental design. After a tolerable start in a post-apocalyptic junkyard, most of the rest of the game takes place in a bland and anonymous maze of generic tech hallways. There's a decent diversion in a corporate suite towards the end, but that simply didn't make up for the confusion, the boredom, and the abject lack of interesting things to see. Skipping ahead to the more playable sequel is advisable.