The title sums it up - the game is half-baked. Everywhere you go, everything you see and do - it all feels half baked or is buggy. Granted, if you have a potent PC then bugs shouldn't be impossible to handle, but don't expect a bug-free experience. On a weaker machine? Don't even come close. When the game isn't buggy, then it always feels unifnished. Cars feel sluggish to control. Combat and in-game economy lacks any sense or balance. Plenty of advertised features are shallow and a bit sad. The title does have a few good things about it: it looks awesome (at least in static screenshots), and the various characters have great delivery and feel authentic - which is great! Unfortunately the main-story feels incredibly short... and seems to be missing one more act (which is in line with the "half-baked" aspect of the game). I wouldn't recommend getting this at this time. Wait 6-12 months for patches and DLCs.
I still have the original Abe in my Steam library. I saved all his fellows. So this review is from someone who has played through the original quite a few times. This new instalment? It just failed to work for me, and let me explain why. a) Visuals: Yes, we have HD now, and lots of it. Yet, I can't really put my finger on it, the whole thing looses some of the charm. I don't think it's just a nostalgia factor either, as I fired up the original Abe just to make sure I'm not making it up. Yes, it's similar, yes, it's HD, and yet... something is missing. Perhaps it's the addition of the 2.5D? Or perhaps it's because instead of the gritty pre-rendered cinematics things are now done almost all in-engine? I'll be honest and I'll say that I cannot put my finger on it, suffice it to say that the visual update didn't blow me away... b) Controls: I played through the original Abe using nothing more than a keyboard, so I went into New'n'Tasy with the same expectations... boy, was I wrong. The game isn't made into "tiles" any more, and as such you can more by minor increments. This is incredibly awkward on the keyboard. So I switched to an Xbox pad, and things got a bit better, but not by much. The minor motions are still annoying in some of the puzzles, which clearly weren't designed with them in mind. About the only thing that was more fun in this game than in the original when it comes to the controls was riding an Ellum, but that's a very very small bit of the gameplay. c) Frustration: In the original, aside from ONE puzzle in the original involving swinging stones with spikes (where it would suddenly "clip" and kill Abe despite him being in a seemingly safe location), the game felt fair. This one? I failed to defuse a simple mine dozens of times because of strange timings. I had trouble "rolling" under fast crushers for the exact same reason (a task which became second-nature in the original). So it becomes frustrating, really REALLY frustrating. Not recommended. Get the original on Steam!
