First and foremost, let me say that this game is definitely not for everyone, certainly not a limited-time, casual gamer. This is one of those games where you WILL die, a LOT. Get past that and the game is enjoyable, especially for those perfectionists that like to do things in an exact order. The flow of the game is very smooth throughout all of those moves, jumps, and getting around. The animation is solid. Also, for the majority of the game, it is pretty open to how you approach a problem. You might have 2 or 3 paths but the order in which you do something is up to you, within reason. If you are used to bumper jumpers like Mirror's Edge, then you'll like this. To me, I feel this is ME but where you can and are encouraged to kill your enemy instead of knocking them out. The time effect is great and the abilities are fairly smooth. Just put on the item that shows collectibles on the map and keep it there. Some of them I have literally zero idea of how to get, but that's part of the fun for map explorers such as myself. Visually, GR is simply beautiful in all of its cyberpunk distopian, futuristic glory. RTX 3080 with ray-tracing enabled adds a bit of pretty accents all over. However, not having an RT-capable card does not mean in any way that the game is any less enjoyably beautiful. It is. The worlds are pleasing to look at with a nice mount of detail for the 3 microseconds I can look at it without having to concentrate on what I am doing. Therefore, slash first, admire second. Lastly, the ONLY reason I give this 4 stars is due to the brevity of the game and the fact that I cannot give it a 4.5 rating. This is definitely a $20-30 game in terms of the quality versus length. The hard mode allows you to go back and play every level with a completely different set of enemies, end-game enemies on level 1 for instance. That said, take a chance, have a little patience, and enjoy yourself with this one.
When this came out, I had received it with either my Voodoo3 2000 or GeForce 2 GTS video card. I figured it, much like most bundled games, was a substandard, barely playable game. In actuality, I found that the game itself was pretty decent and memorable. The game engine was very smooth and the graphics were quite polished for that time. The game story and execution of it was pretty nice. I liked how you went from pilot to the mech throughout the game. This isn't a Final Fantasy-level of story but enjoyable enough to keep you paying attention to the game. Also, when you start the game, try to knife your boss. They planned for quite a bit.
