On a certain level, this game is a marvel. It has all of the played out, creatively bankrupt game design cliches of the modern third person cinematic action game all the way back in 2003. And they were all tedious by the end of this one game, yet AAA game designers still cram this garbage in games 17 years later (Jedi Fallen Order, anyone?). To think, all of the elements that would ruin Ubisoft's catalogue by 2008 were already in place here. Unfortunately, while more recent games like Assassin's Creed are merely mindless and boring (and held up by large, technically impressive historical settings), this game is acively bad. The combat sucks, primarily because of the controls, the camera, and the sluggish overwrought animations. There is a LOT of combat. The game seemingly decides on the fly which enemy the camera will snap to. This changes constantly and jarringly in the middle of fights (which are long and boring slogs through several waves of teleporting enemies pretty much every time). Even that wouldn't be so bad if your movement axis didn't seemingly change with it, constantly, without warning or indication. The result of this is that you dodges very often end up going in some random direction that you can never predict, resulting in many variations of rolling INTO damage. The AAA platforming (i.e. follow the obvious climbables and press jump/action button while holding directions) is as boring as it always has been. It's inoffensive. Some of the puzzles are decent. If they had just focused on the traversal and didn't feel the need to mix up the pacing with painful combat sequences, the game would be average. Inoffensive. As it is, it's just not a good game.
Far Cry 2 was a game that got good reviews from the press, but has inevitably gotten a reputation from most gamers as a boring, and repetitive game bogged down by respawning enemy checkpoints and constant hostile patrols. The first time I played the game, I had many of the same concerns. The way the game generally played out for me was that I would drive straight for my mission objective, along the way stopping several times to switch to my turret and take out a patrol, or stopping to clear out a checkpoint, and then I would get to do much the same thing at the mission site. And this was compounded by the fact that I usually had to repair me vehicle or switch to a new one in each of these encounters and that the checkpoints respawn when you leave that cell in the map. My first play through was about 4 hours and I quit. Unfortunately, I don't think many people got beyond this experience. Far Cry 2 is, as much as I hate the phrase, the kind of game that I think you have to "play right" to enjoy. The checkpoints respawn, but that only encourages you to rough it offroad, find ways around them, and figure out the most efficient ways to clear them out. The patrols are always hostile and will chase you down for long distances, but they have consistent patrol routes that you can take advantage of to avoid or ambush them. Far Cry 2 is a game that encourages controlling every encounter to give yourself the advantage. Every mission is simply a single objective with no indication of how you have to approach it and each location is open-ended and smartly designed. People also complained about the psuedo-realistic elements of the game that put you, unlike most FPS's, in a constant position of disadvantage. Weapons jam (especially those picked up by enemies), your car will break down if fired on and need to be repaired, you have malaria attacks regular interviews that essentially incapacitate you until you take your pill, fire can be useful, but it can become a serious hazard if the wind changes and blows it your way. All of these elements add to the juxtaposition of unpredictability and control that the game thrives on. It encourages you to carefully plan your every move with the constant knowledge that your efforts could be undermined by all of these elements that don't always go in your favor. What could have been an easy search and destroy can turn into a down and out firefight when your carefully timed rocket turns out to be a dud. A planned sniper position could become useless as you have to switch to your secondary weapon because your sniper rifle breaks. There is no other game quite like this one, and unfortunately there may never be, but you;ll never experience it if you don't give it a chance to shine.
Deus Ex is a game that I have always wanted to love. It is a game that appeals to nearly all of the design ideals that I want to see in a game. It's a game that promoted player choice. It's a game with detailed, open levels that encourage exploration. It combines elements of RPGs, stealth games, and shooters. It does all of these great things that I think, despite the fact that System Shock 2 did most of them first and better, have positively impacted the industry. Unfortunately, and here is why I give i the mid-range score you may be curious about, none of it works very well. The stealth is awful (in part because of the laughable AI). The shooting is painful, especially at the start where they thought that lining up a shot at a target that is literally inches away from you should take ten seconds. The nonlethal weapons are too scarce and too ineffective to really be worth using. The skill system is atrocious (and is one of the major reasons for the two former problems). It presents you with myriad options and as the description says, there is no "best" choice, but it's not because every option is viable, it's because none of them are actually good. You throw a gas grenade and the enemies in the area with just cough for a while. You hit a guard with a sleep dart and he will immediately turn and fire, while slowly taking non-lethal damage over almost ten seconds before falling down (I'm told head-shots are instantaneous, but the aiming system is so mediocre that I can't really verify if I have every managed one). It's all about freedom, and free it is, but in the end you're really just given the freedom to be a terrible secret agent in a different way. I have purchased this game several times in the hope that somehow I will be able to look past its major flaws as clearly its dedicated fan base has and enjoy it for what it does right, but in the end I end up thinking I should play one of the more competent modern executions of these ideas like Dishonored or Deus Ex 3.
