Finished the single player campaign, EU version.
The game is basically a dud, not worth a purchase.
Why is that? One the hardest difficulty I managed to breeze through the single player campaign in two sittings and I wasn't really in a major hurry. What the game brings to the table is the atmosphere from the Bioshock series, the graphics from Bioshock or Timeshift and the shooting mechanics from MW2/Bad Company 2/RtCW. The weapons feel like they're lifted mostly from the Resistance series, while being nowhere near as much fun.
What amused me was the budget quality of the Russian representation. Basically, in terms of this game, Russian means reversed letters R and K and a z-category straight to DVD movie voice acting. The man dialog trees are tolerable, but what really irritated me was the fact that there are only a few Russian soldier quips. This means that you will keep hearing the same sentences in a horribly spoken Russian over and over and freaking over again. I swear to god if I have to hear that "he's in a trap" line again, I'll stab someone in the eye.
The graphics are really poor. Even though the SP is completely linear, there is little to no great detail to the picture quality. The engine is also plagued by poor texture loading, making scenes with above average action being played out with the lowest textures. This bugged Bioshock 2 as well.
So the game is really short. The story is good though and nothing impedes its progress. There are multiple endings, but the outcome is seeing either a short clip in FMV or seeing a series of images. There might be a third ending, but I did not try to get that.
What annoyed me further was the fact that they dumbed the game down during the development process. The original previews showed a much more brooding environment, more adult characters and much more intense shooting. A few weeks before E3 they released some puzzle game play video and I swear to god that it is not in the final game. That was perhaps one of the more engaging puzzles. The puzzles that you do get in the game are very simple and they do not really use the devices they themselves have set up. Yet there is the context for a great puzzle system: bring an item from the future to the past, age an item in the past to make it different in the future and whatnot.
The main problems with the game for me:
- Incorrect Russian and horrible voice acting.
- Cartoonish characters.
- Weak puzzles.
- Crap graphics.
Rent if you must. I for one cannot comprehend the 8+ grades from reviews. Or blame my bipolar disorder.
