The Short: A bit like Tomb Raider, with easier jumping parts, better and more diverse fighting system and a really open world where you can decide the progression. Remarkably well done. The gameplay: Very well balanced, many nice side-quests with majority much better than the usual "fetch X" style and even include nice plot twists. The story is well done too, even though I am not the story type. New players are guided the right amount into gameplay, many other games overdo that part. The world is huge. The leveling is done well too, it does not feel like an endless grind. The fighting style fits my playing style: "Archers Heaven". Since I am bad at typical Boss-fights, I like that they are challenging, but manageable. To compare: I fail at many boss fights in The Surge 1 and 2 and have to resort to "helpers". The look: Just great, I have nothing to complain, which is rare. If you play in 4K on a large screen the faces look realistic and not plastic. Though: Why does Aloy always have that concerned and worrisome look on her face? Yep, that is my only complain. And I do complain without hesitation when things are bad, I am German. The coding: Very well done, the performance is great, not a single crash, not a bug anywhere, never got stuck somewhere and could not leave. It is remarkable that the game keeps a good steady FPS with near perfect stutter-free gameplay, much better than most other games. Other things: You are not forced to listen all dialogs, you can skip them quickly. I can read the subtitle faster than they speak their parts. Even though the voice acting is well done. The savegame-spots are limited to fireplaces and some quest-autosave spots, but there are enough fireplaces around to avoid getting annoyed.
The beginning was not my style since I don't like cut-scenes, and it is somewhat slow at the start. But it gets better and better and better and fully deserves five stars... A very well done game, just finished in on August 2022. Long enough to not feel like a rip-off, but does not feel endlessly stretched like some other games. Wander around the world, swim around islands (or use a boat) walk on island and so on. You can get over 3 million dollars quite easily, and once you found your first red envelope always eat and throw in some tea to make fighting easier. Missing information in the controller setup page: Cursor down key pressed short: Holster gun. Cursor down key pressed long: Drop gun or bag. Cursor up key, short press: ready your gun. E key Counter an attack, but only hit it ONCE, and only when the enemy is red. Safest fighting style. The timing is VERY fair, you do have enough time to hit the key. F and E key Stronger enemies require F = duck and often E afterwards, and you must react very quick. These fights are difficult at the beginning, avoid the fat brawlers until you've leveled up. Savegame location in my case: G:\Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition\Save. Backup those files for extra save slots, or to save resurrection costs at the beginning when you don't have enough money yet.
It plays fine, no crash. The controls are OK, could be better. The Graphics are as expected, level design is nice too. Could be four star, cause playing is fun. What ticks me: Constantly backtracking within one level, making it a chore. You have a door which needs power - you have to go back were you just were to restore power since the console can be activated NOW, but you need the key-code to restore power - so you backtrack to where you already where and now you can get the key since the locker is NOW visible - but then you need... The same with reactor shutdown, elevator activation or whatever: You have to walk the same place very often since you have to do the stuff in the order the game designer wants you to, else you cannot even click things. Of course every time you backtrack a new bunch of aliens come out of the floor. Fix the constant screen shaking due to those random explosions: copy \AlienBreedEp1Game\Config\AlienBreedEp1CameraShake.ini to %userprofile%\Documents\My Games\UnrealEngine3\AlienBreedEp1Game\Config Edit the copy, change: [ExampleGame.ABCameraShake] ExplosionShakeDuration=0.0 CameraBobDampen=0.0 Disable blur effect during explosions: Edit %userprofile%\Documents\My Games\UnrealEngine3\AlienBreedEp1Game\Config\AlienBreedEp1Engine.ini [SystemSettings] MotionBlur=False DepthOfField=False Oh, and you can .ini hack first person view if you want, search the internet for it. But Top-Down works better.
The graphics are great. But what makes the game so good is the level design. You are not forced to one linear path, there are always other ways to get to the targets. The levels are huge. I often, after finishing a region in a level, discovered two or MANY more alternate paths I could have sneaked into a target area. You can play sneaky sniper heaven. The enemies are placed well, so keep your eyes on your back where an enemy sniper might be waiting for you. I did not change the controls, they are fine. Usually I don't like checkpoint save style, but they are OK here. It saves often enough. The checkpoint triggers are not just areas, they are mission-specific progress too (i.e. picked up an item, killed main target etc). Save-game location: %Userprofile%\Saved Games\Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts, so you can make extra saves manually by keeping copies. Easy Anti Cheat was not a thing any more when I finished the first play-through a few hours ago, it is gone. Bug 1: You can get stuck on ledges, happens quite often. If waiting for 20 seconds does not unstuck you switch weapons. Not good, but I would have loved to known that "weapon switching" trick sooner, would have prevented a few "load last checkpoint". Bug 2 (the bigger one): When you load a checkpoint the dead bodies are gone. So loot them before. Also: Don't load your checkpoint after the "Bounty!" popup, the bounty target and area might be empty - so no bounty. Quite some times only one of the bountys can be found, and where the second should be it is just empty. Supposed to appear when doing the mission again after finishing it. So in the end it should be 4 stars due to those two bugs, but that level and mission design makes it five star. The game is on par with Sniper Elite 4. And I did not have a single crash.
Alien + Horror combined in such a good way that it scared me so well the mouse flew off the table. Not just cheap jump scares. You hide, and you can hear where IT is crawling and walking along, so play with headphones. And believe me, it feels like it can SMELL you. I bought it on Steam right at the release in 2014, but now with ALL DLC's? And without Steam tracking what I play with what machine and when, even without internet? *click* got it. Now I have something to be scared of again. 10 K Screenshots (made in 2014) - the second one is my windows background from time to time: https://joumxyzptlk.de/alien_isolation.html Full playthrough main mission in 4k highest skill (2014 too): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrxGUnh9b4&list=PLIgfh22pB6pZAfWEikYBZ7aaHsw2koD1C But I am German, of course I have something to complain about: The eyes in the cut-scenes look kinda lifeless :D.
But there are always exceptions. This is one. The physics are indeed fine tuned. You are not forced to do fast pace, you can play chill style. The tutorial is good enough for me. A very nice evening game after a stressful day. And I still have only the first ship, just upgraded a few things. Cons: Up to now none. Hints / spoilers: If you are about to be shot to death, which does not happen often, ALT+F4 before you explode. You can use your thrusters to break up rocks with finer control than shooting. Get the Nakamura MPU microwave thingy for you cargo bay. BIG fuel tank means a lot of weight and a lot of overheating just moving around, so not worth early on as I learned. If you have enough money, get "MPI town class storage", giving you a BIIIG buffer before the reactor overheats. Important when you need to outrun someone shooting you or when you maneuver difficult areas.
I regret buying this game. In third person the camera shakes, and you cannot control it. This camera control, or the lack of, constantly make the picture shake and shift in some viewing direction you don't want. After 20 Minutes I had to exit, no chance. In first person you cannot move forward or backward, only sideways. You cannot skip cut-scenes, every time you retry a level you are forced to look the cut-scene. The save spots are bad placed, and when you exit and re-enter the game you cannot select a save spot, only a level. Forcing you to watch the cut-scene again. This plays like a bad console port, and for a game from 2005 with a lot of bad design and control decisions. The one star is for being somewhat unique, the story seems fine as far as I can see, and it works fine on my PC without major issues. Even widescreen and 4K is fine during play, but the cut-scenes are stretched. Avoid!
Well, I just had "lets play something I already have on my pile". What a pleasant surprise! The levels are very well done - my sense of orientation is not the best, but in this game I don't need a map for orientation. A rare case. The game-play is FPS+story unfolding. You come back to areas you've been quite often, but it does not feel like a chore. You get new abilities allowing you to unlock areas which were hidden when you got there the first time. You have several way to unlock them - strong? remove the boxes. Hacker? Throw a "Recycler bomb" to remove them - gives you some materials too. Jump-climb style? Do it. You don't have to do endless grinding (hello "The Surge!"). You can do the tank playing style, or my preference: Slow, silent and deadly. But an important hint for the graphics: First adjust them in the normal menu the way you like. Then open "%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games\Arkane Studios\Prey\game.cfg" (copy paste into start -> run or explorer). Add: r_MotionBlur = 0 r_Sharpening = 0.50 r_ChromaticAberration = 0 r_HDRGrainAmount = 0 r_HDRBloomRatio = 0 r_MotionBlurCameraMotionScale = 0.0 and set it read-only, else the game might kill your options when you enter the options menu. Kills motion blur, color fringe, useless grain and exaggerated bloom.
Would be 4 star, but one thing is extremely annoying: You have infantry with sniper capability: One shot with more range. but then your infantry starts to run towards the enemy, right into their range of fire instead of staying put. Suicidal running towards the defense tower applies to other infantry as well, not only snipers. Another scene: A heavy machine gun is moving close, you order your units to run away - but no, they lay on the ground and crawl away, while the cannon from the back shoots them all down. And since the cannon moves faster than your crawling men you can forget about them - they are toast due to their stupidness. So use F5 a lot. A LOT! Be prepared to constantly call back your stupid men from being so suicidal. Once you get used to it, it's clearly a 4 star game: Nice maps, nice GFX and even tactical possibilities to solve the situations in various different ways. Most missions can be solved without losing a single machine. To be honest: Up to now I could solve ALL mission without losing a single unit (except for hard scripted losses) - but I've not finished all single player missions yet. @gog: When will we be able to update a review? For example to up the rating when bugs were fixed, or to correct typos? Would improve experience and sale!
