Posted on: February 23, 2011
Curunauth
Possesseur vérifiéJeux: 1226 Avis: 23
Cool concept, horrible controls
Second Sight is a third person shooter that tries to blend gunplay and psychic powers but does not do a particularly good job at either thanks to poor control implementation. Still, the concept is good and the overall easiness of the game prevents the handicaps with which it saddles you from becoming too much of a frustration. VISUALS: This is a reasonably attractive game, with decent polygon counts in the models and enough detail that the extensive face time works well (although it's far from gorgeous). Environments are somewhat varied, although there is an obviously small selection of cut-and-paste objects and architectural features. While textures are reasonably detailed, the lack of bump- and other surface mapping means that everything is a bit flat and curves on everything except the characters are clearly polygonized. Water is planar with a simple noise texture, but does reflect (as do some floors and mirrors), and various psi effects are nicely rendered (air lensing, shields, etc). AUDIO: The soundtrack is simple and mostly fine, although limited. Unfortunately, it is not well balanced (I needed to turn it down several times) and some pieces have percussion that can mask or be confused for footsteps or gunfire, which is pretty stupid in a game that values stealth. Enemies react audibly to seeing you or to noticing something odd; if you can kill, strangle, or otherwise silence a guard before he finishes radioing in where he found a body, you can prevent an alarm from going off, so keeping an ear peeled is useful. In the later game, the sound of firefights triggered by your possessed puppets will help you time abuse of your powers. Various guns are different but not very distinctive sounding; fortunately it doesn't matter much, since you can almost always scout at your leisure via projection. CONTROLS and GAMEPLAY: Everything that can be done wrong in a third person shooter is done wrong here. You can switch to first-person view, but you can't move beyond leaning, which is acceptable in a platformer and utterly ridiculous in a shooter, especially since it is the only way to effectively aim at close range (ie, the time you most need to be moving). You cannot fire unless in aiming mode, which will lock on to the general region of a target (and slow you down); unfortunately lock is sticky but you can still miss, and it is nearly impossible to switch between two nearby targets (and sometimes the game will keep snapping to one particular target even if you're aiming closer to a distant one). Also, you will notice in sniper sections that you sometimes lock onto empty areas (or enemies behind buildings), and occasionally when locked on to a real target the aim point is slightly offset and no amount of mouse movement will bring it over the target; in these cases you have to re-lock and possibly switch targets. Aiming is slightly freer in first person view unless there are multiple nearby targets, and of course you will be unable to maneuver. The only times that the shooting is at all decent are when you are crawling through low tunnels - in these cases you are forced into first-person view but can still move, so control is rather like an actual shooter. Aiming difficulties extend to powers as well, complicated by the abundance of power-targetable objects in the environment. If you enter first-person view to avoid camera issues and stop your body from occluding your target, you will discover that your hand extends and points significantly low and to the left of your actual target, adding significant and unnecessary confusion. Fortunately, once locked on you have no further aiming to do (except with the psi-blast, whose huge projectile is both difficult to aim and easily blocked by nearby corners and bits of scenery). If you are camped somewhere using powers, you would be well-advised to destroy or throw away all targetable objects to increase your chances of selecting an enemy when you need to. Unfortunately, any attempt to use targeted powers on groups of enemies is likely to fail, as the first enemy selected is likely to constantly grab you aim when trying to select someone else, even once he is knocked down. If it weren't for the fact that you can absorb enough lead to sink a destroyer, this would make groups quite lethal; as it is, you're still likely to be killed if pinned in a corner because you will be unable to effectively aim and fire either powers or guns. (How it is possible to miss while emptying an SMG clip at point blank range is completely beyond me . . . it is possible that the game fires from a point in front of you, behind the backs of sufficiently close enemies.) The game is obviously targeted at consoles, and this shows in the very small number of keys that are used to do everything (with context-sensitive actions being listed onscreen). If the game were harder or required fancy maneuvering in combat, this would be a problem, but as it is, it's only a minor irritation most of the time. It is fortunately difficult to accidentally enter sticky cover (hugging a wall), which is good because it is awful (as usual). The camera has all the standard third-person-action problems, with vibration from some angles, drift when in a corner (where you're probably camping for enemies and need a steady viewpoint), terribly chosen fixed-angle cameras [always optional, and never useful since they invariably point away from enemy approaches], and unpleasantly variable sensitivity (in part due to the stickiness of enemy lock in aim mode, particularly in first person). You move too quickly to accurately edge around corners unless you are both crouched and in aim mode, which is unwieldy but at least usually possible; unfortunately it can be hard to judge sightlines unless you pop in and out of the immobile first person view. Your movement speed combines with the game being picky about what counts as "behind" to make silent kills (via sneaking up on an enemy) harder than it should be; furthermore, I accidentally strangled two NPCs (one of which turned allies hostile and required a restart) because the same key is used for talking, depending on angle. STORY/ACTING: The story is actually somewhat interesting (although a bit cliched, and the twist is predictable), and the acting is fairly good. When working with a squad, various characters will react to what you do, from telling you to take cover (don't), to complimenting shots, to thanking you for heals [or in the case of the medic, complaining that you're doing his job . . . which is odd since he *never* healed anyone, including critical cases]. Enemies have a variety of taunts, and everyone has appropriate accents (although some of the Slavic ones seemed overdone to me). Only one character is actively irritating, and she has a reason to be, so it's not terrible. There are lots of story cutscenes (which can be skipped with the Space key), as well as specific death cutscenes for different stages of the game, including squad-member-specific ones for letting various allies die in team missions. The former are interesting enough, and I found the latter to be a nice little touch. DIFFICULTY: The game offers two difficulty levels, Normal and Challenging. I played on the latter and found it to be very easy, which ended up saving the game, since the controls are so bad. Once you gain the ability to possess opponents, you will rarely face more than one enemy at a time, and all control weaknesses can be laughed off as you take your time aiming your first shot and then laugh as your puppet is gunned down if you mess up. Your bullet-soaking abilities are key to playing through several sections before you get decent powers (when escorting Jayne, you can protect her by charging in Rambo-style and firing wildly with the SMG as you soak up bullets that would otherwise have found their way into her empty head), and will protect you if you accidentally let an enemy slip by to your body while having fun with possession. Integrating psychic powers with a shooter is probably very difficult in game-balance terms, and with headshots being instakills on almost all enemies, it is important to give you some handicaps in gun use. The drifting aim point is a typical way to do this, and it is implemented here - but when the targeting system also forcibly prevents you from aiming where you intend to, that leaves the realm of realistic lack of skill and becomes a frustrating design failure. Some of the limitations stem from the obvious console target of the game, but many are simply bad design choices. If just one of powers or guns sucked, I'd just have heavily used the other and said it pushed you that way; as both suck, it's painful and you have to abuse everything you can to make it bearable. Fortunately, there's plenty to abuse - so much so that from about the middle of the game onward, it is almost more of an interactive story than a game most of the time. While this means it will never earn high ranks from me, it also saves the game from really low ranking, since abusing powers is fun. Even with no actual risk, you can try to get as much use as possible out of each possessed enemy. You cannot save your game, but levels have periodic checkpoints (at every cutscene and often in between as well), and your most recent checkpoint is always kept. Checkpoints usually occur in the vicinity of first-aid kits (before you get healing), so you will generally not find yourself re-starting a level because you checkpointed with only a sliver of health. Although I restarted several sections mostly because I enjoy doing things the wrong way, there are a couple sections that can be hard, at least until you discover the most effective way of handling them; I'll go over those below. In general, no section requires a great deal of skill, even though some can try your patience. LEVELS, STRATEGY, and OTHER ELEMENTS: While levels are generally linear overall, a few have sections offering a variety of paths, ranging from a complete branch in the second level (there are two completely separate routes) to building clusters that can be explored in any order. The squad missions are the most linear; very combat-focused, they generally require you to fight (because your teammates are usually terrible shots) as well as advancing to trigger changes in enemy waves. If you hear your squad ordering you to move up, do so because there will be infinite enemies until you do, possibly several times! Keep your allies healed (once you can), because ally death means mission failure. Several sections in early missions are best classed as escort because your companion will walk into fields of fire without considering cover; thankfully these can be solved by playing Rambo. Two later missions are more traditional escort tasks, with all the babysitting that implies; to make matters worse, the escortee is whiny (excused by story), runs from combat and must be fetched (but fortunately stays out of fire), and spawns enemies if left alone for too long (ARGH!). As you might guess, this leads to time pressure when you are inevitably forced to abandon your less-mobile friend to unlock the path. Fortunately, the spawn timer is extended in both cases, and you get a checkpoint at the start. The checkpoint system encourages players to react to some survivable mistakes by reloading, and level design does little to change this; in the aforementioned escort mission I survived a bad drop and was ready to accept the challenge of getting back to my companion to reset the timer and try again, only to find that the one apparent path was unusable (a ledge that led back to the starting point was both too thin to stand on and refused to offer me the hanging-off action). After successfully fending off the third wave of time-triggered enemies while searching, I gave up and reloaded, abandoning what could have been a daring save with better level design. All but the last few solo levels can often be completed by stealth alone or some mix of stealth and combat. Going all-out with guns will usually result in continual alarms and infinite enemies, so some level of sneakiness is almost always required (although in the combat-heavy later missions, some alarms have little effect). If you do accidentally set off an alarm, most levels up to the late game have ample supplies of closets in which to hide and wait out the alarm (which also serve as recharge stations when charming your way past guards). The awful controls further encourage the use of stealth so that you have time to wrestle them into giving you a good shot, possibly followed by Rambo-like drives to silence anyone radioing in a location. Once you learn possession, most solo sections are a cakewalk: get close, possess, whittle down to last enemy, walk out, choke to death. The force-choke power makes you effectively invincible against any single enemy, including the extra-special super-soldiers (not just the first ones in black) near the end - if you choke them long enough to knock them down, you recharge more than you spent in the time it takes for them to get up. Furthermore, they can't call for help while being choked, and you can speed up the kill by smacking them into walls while holding them or just shooting them in the head when they're down (both of which may take a few tries thanks to the controls). This method breaks down against groups, and the aforementioned super-soldiers will pair up at one point (it would almost still work, but the inability to consistently pick targets means you will probably lose). Of course, you have a method of close-quarters crowd control in the late game, and spamming that will solve all problems, from super-soldiers to the final battle. (I almost never used it otherwise, so it was still amusing to watch 'em fly even if it was ridiculously easy and a bit anticlimactic.) It is usually clear where to go, but I found myself quite confused in a couple outdoor areas thanks to poor visual design; some but not all fences can be leapt over, and hanging from ledges is a contrivance used only 3 or 4 times. One of the later levels has multiple occasions where you climb *through* a fence to go up a ledge or hang from an edge; I only figured this out by walking up to various edges and looking for an action to present itself. Fortunately you never have to do this in combat, and you are not given the option to jump out of the map or otherwise trap yourself. THE VERDICT: Second Sight was headed for a 2 early on and was only saved by its neat concept and the fact that there are so many ways to abuse abilities in the late game that frustration is kept to a minimum. The controls are truly awful, but the powers are fun, and who cares if the Russian soldier you're puppeting keeps missing, you were planning to kill him later anyway! Once you get the crowd-control blast, problems break down into two categories: long-range enemies who can be ignored as you charge to whatever target area triggers the next game event or checkpoint, and enemies who chase you around corners and get blast-spammed to death (even the super soldiers). The key to enjoying the game is to give up any tactic that is becoming frustrating and try abusing a different power - there's always a pretty easy solution, and as your skills improve, you even get a bit of variety. It's sad that providing fun abilities and enough variety to stave off boredom when abusing them is only enough to earn a 3, but in addition to its flaws, this game lacks the genuine challenge and skill-reward that really mark a good game. Only buy this if you're willing to play strategically around mechanical limitations, won't be angered by all the cool tricks you could almost use if only the controls would let you, and can find the fun in abusing an overpowered character (but there is a good chunk of the latter to be had!).
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