I'm sure I'll get a lot of grief from angry fans for the bashing of this game. But I don't care, I have no reputation to uphold, or sponsors to please, like gaming magazines. But what's not to like? I'll try to summarize the things that made me bitter about the game here.

The first thing that made me uneasy is that they throw the player into the game without much explanation. You just know that you're someone going somewhere, to rescue someone, from someone else, because you owe money to someone. No prequel, no back story for the character, no nothing. This of course bothered me, I wanted answers and rather sooner than later.

The second thing that shocked me is the graphics. It's sub-par. I'm not saying it's not pretty, it's nicely designed, but it's too cartoony for my eyes, the objects are simple, and the textures are very low resolution. I expect a 10/10 game to excel in all departments.

By the time I was trough the baptism, and "false shepherd" scene I was convinced that at best this will be a nice shooter. Because it was obvious that player choice is not something the game offers. You're constantly being herded, on many occasions you're not even allowed to move the camera an inch. It feels like you're just a spectator looking in, and not actually taking part in the events. I couldn't even have immersed myself in the story, had there been any. Story that is.

So what is the game about? I don't know. A bunch of action bubbles? You reach a point on a map, and you can't progress further until you eliminated all enemies. Then comes a few corridors, or streets, and you end up in another action bubble where you again have to kill everyone to move forward. That's about it.

It still could've been a great game, but sadly it's not. The action is repetitive, boring, and sometimes even annoying (when the enemies keep coming out of nowhere and you've already died 10 times over). Your weapons and perks are ineffective. You constantly run out of ammo, you die, and you're reborn, and then you die again. But it's no matter. Because in this game it's even beneficial to die. The game mechanics are completely messed up. You have to play to die. Ok, you don't have to, but what else is there to do, when you're out of ammo, and can't find any. But if you die you're reborn with a full clip, with only a few dimes missing from your credits. It would cost more to buy ammo from a vending machine, if there were any in combat areas. (that actually sell ammo)

As you progress through the game the enemies get tougher, but your weapons not. (you can buy some damage upgrades, but its as useful as giving a drawn map to a blind man) Some boss enemies you have to maw at for minutes to put them down. And if you die doing it, well his health will be refilled too. So there is no point in retreat either. If you kill and you die that's no problem, because enemies don't come back to life. But if you try to run, and then you die, the enemy you let walk away will have it's health boosted. But the most annoying thing is the lack of ammo, especially when you have to fight the big bosses. Because if you run out of ammo and die their health will be boosted too. So the only way to kill them is to bring their health down to zero without dying even once while doing it. That's easier said than done, when the boss keeps throwing henchman at you without end. And don't think for a minute that you can at least get ammo from fallen henchmen. Because for example you can pick up 5-10 bullets for the machine gun from a fallen enemy, if he actually carries that weapon, but you need at least three times that amount to kill an average enemy towards the end of the game.

Another thing in the game are vigors. These are powerups that give you abilities, that are most useless. During my playtrough I only found two of them slightly useful. One of them is the first you get, early in the game, that you can use to turn turrets and robots against your enemies. But you can only use this twice, and then you're out of salts. (Salts are the fuel for vigors - don't ask why) There are others like spawning crows, magnetically shielding yourself for a few moments, or throwing fire around, etc. But they all use up your salts very quickly without making much of a dent on enemies. The only other vigor I found somewhat useful is the shocker. Because that interrupts the enemy that you hit with it. Giving you enough time to kill them before they kill you.

There is actually one really great thing in the game. Your companion, who you get fairly early (about 2 hours in). This is the first game where a partner is not annoying or obstructive, but really helpful. Well she won't fight for you one bit, but she won't get killed either. So you don't have to babysit her. And she can give you health, salts, or ammo, if you're low on them. She won't keep you always stocked, because within a certain time interval you can only get one item from her, but its still very relieving when you occasionally get thrown a health pack just before you're about to die. The best is when you get ammo from her, because she throws you a new weapon so you don't even have to reload. This doesn't sound much, but you'll see, the fighting in the game is so fast paced, even the 2 seconds you win by not reloading is extremely helpful.

Well actually at the game's end I found out that they're so vague about the story, because otherwise the twist ending wouldn't work. But it's not a trade-off that's worth it, not one bit. I didn't like the ending at all. Frankly I don't even understand exactly what was the point of anything that I did during the game. It all seemed so pointless that it didn't even felt like a victory. No satisfaction at all. If the key is really what they say it is, then you could skip everything between the first and last one minute of the game and still get the same result.


+

  • Atmosphere  
  • Companion  
  • Graphics design  
  • Sound/Music  
  • Cutscenes and conversations with Elizabeth  


-

  • You can get stuck in even the smallest objects  
  • Repetitive fighting  
  • Constant shortage on ammo  
  • Vague story until the end.  
  • Outdated cartoony graphics  
  • Lack of choice (maybe mass effect had spoiled me, but I want more control over the story than not dying/dying)  
  • You're constantly herded, can't do anything to avoid your faith.  
  • Useless weapons and vigors  
  • You die more often than Kenny in south park.  
  • Irrational really should try and make something new, and not reuse the same template again and again for the nth time.  


Judgement time: 6/10 I still can't believe it got 10/10 reviews, even if I'm stupid and this is the best story ever, the graphics and the not so revolutionary gameplay should lower the score a little bit at least.