If you asked me 15 hours ago to rate thios game, I would have given 5 stars without a moments hesitation. Because the many campaing is simply great. So what happened? After finishing (most of) the maion campaing the game forces you to finish most of the side missions before yopu get to see the ending. And man: those are some of the worst and most annoying things I've done in any game. Because it makes you do the same things over and over again. An example? Twoface is robbing a bank: Go in, beat up thze bad guys, Two Face access the security system, you get locked in, beat up more bad guys. Great whats next? Oh, Two Face is robbing a similar looking bank. Go in, beat up thze bad guys, Two Face access the security system, you get locked in, beat up more bad guys. Great whats next?Oh, Two Face is robbing a third bank that looks almost like the first two. Gee, I wonder what will happen next?!? And this is one of the more fun missions. Catch Penguin? Need to tag a mini van, follow it to a weapons hideout, beat up the guys, detonate a vault. Good work! Now follow a second mini van, beat up the guys,... You get the point. And want to feel really dead inside? Why don't you search and rescue thos 15 fire figters? Still having fun? Here are 40+ roadblocks, 20+ watch towers and 20+ mines to search and clean up (every one with multiple similar enemies you've to fight. I ended up using a god mode cheat - and still needed more than 15 hours of repetive, teadious work to get to the point where they would finally show me the ending. So my advise to you: Don't bother - just watch a youtube video.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD! I'LL BE TALKING ABOUT THE ENDING!! . . . This game is a kind of tragedy. It starts out great with an interesting world, unique characters and the promise of thrilling detective story with twists, turns and a lot of suspects that all have their own agenda. Than add a touch of politics and some strange, quirky humor and all is set for an experience to remember. And the game delivers for the first acts of the story. You collect clues and constantly have to re-evaluate who are the good and who are the bad guys. And than in the last Act it falls completely flat. Gone are the descissions, you just follow a pretty linear path to the ending. And worst of all: When it comes to the solution to the mystery: the game gives you a big middle finger. If you tryed to solve the case by yourself - forget it. All the questioning of suspects, all the back and forth, all the contradicting testemonies, all the "who might be lying" - you can forget it all. Because in the end (SPOILER!!!) the killer turns out to just be a random guy you have never met before, that was never mentioned before and none of the witnesses knew. So the game is basically 30 hours of inconsequential questioning people, than you realize that the shot might also have originated on a different island. You go there - bang - there is your killer. Ask a few questions, he confesses. Hip-Hip-Hurray - Cue the credits. Thank you for nothing...
I know this game is a classic - and a classic I had missed until now. But I'm sorry to say: it just didn't connect with me. I'm now more than 10 hours in and I'm still not hooked. The gameplay is somewhat fun with a lot of creative weapons and powers, but often the true challenge isn't the enemeys themselves but your ability to navigate the power and weapon selection. Why is the photocamera (that is completly useless in a fight) in between two weapons? Same goes for passive and active powers. Why do I have to manually select a different bullet-type when I'm running out of my current selected...? It's a fascinating world, but I need a story to pull me through. And unfortunatly the main story so far isn't more than "I'm stranded in this strange underwater-city and there is this guy telling me to go to him, to get rescued. End of story"
Came for the unique style of the game and in the end it was the only thing that dragged me thru it... The gameplay itself is completly linear with not much highlights, some parts are just anoying and the save-system is a joke (there are checkpoints, but you have to press quicksave to really save. If you forget this and close the game you're thrown back to the last checkpoint at which you saved also manually - lost quite a few hours of my life because of this. Also: Some of the checkpoints are just unfair, e.g. you survive a boss fight or espacially hard part of the game and than die from a minion and have to do it all again). And most disapointingly: The game ends with an cliffhanger, that doesn't get resolved...
