... I friggin LOVE Saints Row, but, tl;dr version of this rating: Get, and play, SR3 instead. Done that already...? Good. Now, SR4 completely cuts out the whole meat and big part of gameplay by for example, rendering any and all vehicles entirely pointless, to name just one example, and the world degrades to something rather 2 dimensional (there are reasons, just saying it's gameplay still suffers from it). All you'll be doing is sidequest minigames, one after the other, again and again. These are not a fun "extra bit" like they used to be in SR3, or even the GTA titles (you know, the "cause as much havoc as you can using a provided rocket launcher or a tank" icons), but these ARE the main focus of gameplay. Once you completed enough of these - and it's a grind - you're rewarded with, yes, more of the incredibly awesome main story. But the thing is, SR4 was originally intended as a DLC for 3, and it shows. Making repeating sidequests into main gameplay was required to pad the game into a full release, but in the end, once you've done each of these quests once, you're forced to repeat the same thing until it becomes painfully clear just how hollow the gameplay is, compared to 3rd. Get 4 for the main story, if you're okay with the, make no mistake, REGULAR grind to get to the good parts, and continue playing 3rd once you're done! However, if you can look past that... then yes, 3 or 4 stars, it comes with some STELLAR moments. And I still enjoyed those a lot. The wrapping though, now that's my problem and the reason for the harsh rating overall.
Oh maaaaan... I reeeally wanted to love this game so bad, it starts out so incredibly promising and made me so giddy with its opening sequence, and the first hours of gameplay...! I'm the kid of guy who loves to take in every tiny detail of atmospheric worlds, and this one fits the bill. It looks and feels incredible. I am a sucker for doing detective work too, figuring stuff out and finding all the pieces of a puzzle - but with those expectations, the game didn't take long to fall FLAT on its face. It quickly becomes a huge mess of a dark, psychedelic trip so far dislodged from reality, that following the plot of Ghost in the Shell: Innocence on your first watching pales in comparison. It tries to be scary, but that stops being effective when you begin to question reality itself. I find myself in horrid corridors with living, pulsating tissue and organs stretched along the walls and all I can think is, "these are, in reality, probably just wires and I'm either tripping, or it's holographic". It does not have any impact anymore, and jumpscares don't work either once you feel like the things you see are not physically real. I found myself just standing there, watching as an ACTUAL instakill monster charged at and killed me, because I expected it to be fake like everything else. Figuring out crimes doesn't work either when you have to constantly question reality itself, but don't worry - there is nothing to figure out, the game does it all for you ayways. This had soo much potential...! Maybe I just had the wrong expectations going into this, but it became a disappointment real fast. Mindlessly going along with it, I go "that's happening now? Sure." a lot, just taking in the gorgeous atmosphere of the *real* world as much as I can, and getting through the psychedelic dream sequences as fast as possible. Those seem to be the main focus of the game, with the Cyberpunk setting being a mere vessel to deliver these sequences. Rather than any actual detective work.
First and foremost: I absolutely LOVE this game. The setting, gameplay, story and atmosphere, anyways. Such a damn shame, but it has to be said: UNPLAYABLE IN ITS CURRENT STATE. Starts out alright, some weird audio and surround issues, mainly affecting dialogue... okay, switch to stereo, solved - kinda. But it just keeps coming. At certain resolutions, the game goes full-bright, particularly in surface levels, where the sun illuminates every supposedly creepy, dark basement room, shining "through" all walls. Without two .ini edits, and "read only" flag after, it may not allow you to change the resolution, either. I switched to windowed mode and used "ShiftWindow.exe" to put the game centerd on my screen as it won't allow you to move its window without 3rd party tools. It's notorious for its crashing to desktop, and it didn't happen to me - until it did, many hours into the game in one level in particular ("Defense", at 120+FPS), 100% reproducible. "Solved" by lowest settings and disabling PhysX, for the remaining half of the Level (playing at ~500+ FPS now, wow). Also a known bug: The Helsing arrow gun is losing all spare ammo you spent your very limited money on, with each loading screen (including reloads). And, just for the fun of it, I got one more. That one's probably specific to my system, though: I've got a soundbar, and only Metro disables any and all system volume control while I'm ingame. To lower or raise the system volume, I have to either tab out, or open Galaxy Overlay to get the media keys on my keyboard (or the soundbar) to work. Very weird. I could keep going, but if I'd have to at this point, you won't care anyways - go ahead, buy it if you love to spend more time tinkering around, trying to solve numerous weird issues, than actually playing the thing. Do some research, first. Here's my favorite quote: "I invested more effort into trying to run this game than into my relationship". Still was in vain.
Now, you probably shouldn't do what I did. I didn't want to wait for when I've upgraded my hardware [which I plan on doing this year] to play this game. I played it on pretty much "diashow mode" on my 2008 M11x R1 (Core 2 Duo 1.7 GhZ, GeForce GT 335M, 8GB RAM). I did this because I knew there wouldn't be any "action" that required split second reaction time. Yes, I'm crazy. Now, the game - the first playthrough will take the longest, and don't spoil it by watching too many gameplay videos before. The concept of the AI only works as intended if you don't know what exactly to type to progress - you're supposed to tickle that out of Kaizen yourself. Depending on how you act and talk to Kaizen, that might be easier, or harder to do - I did both a mistrusting, uncaring playthrough, and a, let's call it, "OMFG KAIZEN I LOVE YOU SO MUCH" playthrough. The reactions and willingness to tell me things differed greatly, uncovering different things, or things from different angles in each playthrough. Which makes it all the more impressive even if you sometimes feel like talking to a, well, chatbot. There's still a given context frame of the location and progression and things you did in the game, which helps guide the conversation - and Kaizen will subtly hint at things if you seem to be stuck somewhere for too long. Is there a right and wrong? It's all about trust. You're on the same boat, and wether you love or hate each other, you need to get along in the end - and find out what happened, and what you can do. Depending on how you play and interact with Kaizen, you'll different endings to the story. Comfort, out of your comfort zone. Book now!
I've got this from Humblebundle. I've been all looking an experience like KSP and Besiege, where I could build my own planes, and replicate a few things out of games and shows. Except I didn't get too far with it - maybe it's just me, but, that editor was - and unless they changed stuff around still is - INCREDIBLY unintuitive, complicated and time consuming to use. After building in KSP and Besiege, this felt like an infuriating joke, and after watching several YT tutorials without finding any answers to my questions, I just gave up. Now, don't pin me on that, but I BELIEVE it was something about undoing things, and uncooperative camera & clicking controls, I remember looking through the options to change what my mouse buttons do or something... everything's kinda vague by now, it's been a few months. What I do remember is, I wasted hours on end trying to get down with the uncooperative editor in sandbox mode, getting frustrated about things it just didn't let me to and attempting to use the feature to make own sections to re-use later [I guess?], I just kinda ragequit and deleted the game. Don't get me wrong, I really do love KSP and Besiege, creating my own things, and cool looking ones at that. But something about that editor just absolutely didn't work for me. The gameplay I went into in between, with the planes from the community, didn't entertain me much, either - the planes, especially the modern one with ludicrous amounts of detail made me wonder, HOW did people use THAT editor to create things as delicate as this... Anyways, after toying around with the provided planes for a few minutes in total, it got boring rather quickly. This IS all about creating your own - which the editor never allowed me to do. It's hard to explain [especially if it's been a while], one of those things you have to try yourself to understand. But perhaps I've just not been able to use it because nobody ever explains how to and it's just not as intuitive as it's presented to be.
Far Cry 2 feels lackluster and boring, despite obvious potential. Honestly, feels like they were unable to program proper AI. Doing missions for either of two "opposing" forces, BOTH sides will fiercely open fire as soon as their X-ray eagle-vision spots you on the horizon despite the foliage, which only prevents YOU from seeing them. Soon, you're feeling like a blind man, most of the time barely able to see enemies standing in plain sight since everything blends together or because 3 pixels somewhere on the horizon constantly shoot at you. The settlement is occupied by not one, but both forces. They get along there, so you can get missions at the same place. Every mission requires you to kill everything that moves at locations you've already been at, every time consuming drive there and back is interrupted at about 6 checkpoints where you have to kill everyone over and over again as they will respawn like 10secs after you left. Once you take a wrong turn you'll figure that out the hard way. Story is extremely weak to nonexistent, most dialogue fast forwarded - shipped the recordings at x times original speed to fit on disc. Thus, if you're not native english, even subtitles won't help because they're talking so fast you can't finish reading before they're gone. Character voices so quiet, ambient sounds drown them out, and no audio settings... then again, enemies far away sound as if they were right next to you, their voices don't seem to get quieter with distance, increasing the difficulty of pinpointing enemy locations, which only adds to your disorientation. Barely qualifies as "Open World", very limited Ways to go, little reason to explore. While you CAN pointlessly go anywhere at any time, terrain constantly funnels you through the same few roads. Can't ignore checkpoints, they WILL stop your vehicle within secs, and not driving on the flat road requires repairs every few minutes for jumping hip-high hills with your Quad. Uhm... loved the HUD, though...?
There's a few Things you need to know as of now, see below Review. ___________ Seeing the Trailer for Sublevel Zero, I literally cried in Joy. I immediately bought it, and played it ever since. Basically, it's an Ode to DESCENT, and while those Guys work on the next DESCENT: UNDERGROUND [go have a Look!], in the Meantime, this really does feel like DESCENT meets TRON. Gameplay is both slow and explory as you go, and inevitably kicks in High Gear when you engage in Dogfights with Enemies, accompanied with Gameplay-dynamic, gorgeous OST which really sets the Mood. I can't stop listening to it, even right now. I've kept the Main Menu open all Day and Night, just to listen. Visually, its Esthetics are remarkably beautiful to look at, even though it might get a bit too glowy here and there so it's hard to distinguish Projectiles coming towards you and the HUD sometimes glitches [just wrong Color]. It's hard, especially if you rush through. Expect to die a lot, and still come back for MORE! While it -does- have some Problems [they're getting fixed], it does NOT take away from its Fun in ANY Way and I highly recommend you give it a Try! ___________ 1) ALWAYS CARRY AN EXTRA ENGINE IN INVENTORY. As of now, sometimes you spawn in the next Level WITH YOUR ENGINE MISSING, unable to move. You need to have a Backup Engine in Inventory, until they've patched it [they're working on it], else you need to restart the whole Game, back to Level 1 again. 2) DON'T QUIT MID-MISSION. The Game doesn't tell you explicitly, other than being "Rouge-Like", but you'll lose all Progress and have to restart at Level 1 if you do. Only quit the Game after completely finishing a Level ["Save and Quit"]. 3) Everything's covered in the Tutorial, just one Thing as far as I know: Just like L-Stick is for Moving with Click to Boost, R-Stick is for Steering - and has the unmentioned Click to change Firing Mode with some Weapons. Look at the Ammo Usage in the Display as an Indicator.
WARNING: As I reached the Endgame, I found myself being trapped in complete Darkness all the Way down in the Pit where Shodan is supposed to introduce herself to you, Face to Face. Since the Game didn't teleport me into her Boss Room, that's my Endgame now, I guess. [German Version] My biggest Downside is, I'm not scared or creeped out at ALL. I tried to RP that Stuff as much as possible [not being seen etc.], but even if I was horribly failing, Enemies didn't do much. Also, this Game feels and plays like a Shooter. But to about a Quarter of the Game, I was limited to the Wrench. I had Piles of Ammo, two Pistols and a Shotgun this whole Time. All broken. Once repaired, they broke down after 2 Shots again. I didn't even bother collecting any more of these. I nearly stopped playing, instead I cheated to get 2.000 Repair Tools. I still have 1.200 Repair Tools, so having 800 is enough. But zero or 5 at best, that's just plain gamebreaking. I felt like THROWING my broken Pistols at Enemies for so long... So, to sum this up, it didn't scare or creep me at all, and I would have stopped playing it if it wasn't for my Chating. I have to admit, since these two are within the same Category, I'd prefer the newer Dead Space 1 [didn't manage to scare me either, BTW] over this in Terms of Gameplay, since it seems to be heavily inspired by it.