Man was I waiting for this one to come out. Ever since reading the long layout in Game Informer Magazine, I was licking my chops to get my hands on this bad boy. Now that it is here how do I like it? Well as settings go this may well be one of the best atmospheres in a shooting game ever. The basic story is that your character shipwrecks and finds himself in a underwater city, something like Atlantis. This city is supposed to be a perfect city, a city that could not be built anywhere else. A city where there was no government or religious freaks to tell people what to do. Well the main guy finds that the city is in ruins and has only a small chance of escaping by helping another person in his situation.
Like stated above, the city has a Silent Hill theme to it. You hear distant cries, yelling, insane people, and bloodstained walls. The game reeks of horror, but instead you are treated to a balls out shooter. So how is the battle system?
Like any other FPS silly. The interface is actually smooth. By holding down buttons you can pause in the middle of the action and switch weapons on the fly. You get your standard machine gun, shotgun, pistol, wrench for melee, and a few other surprises. You also have access to physical powers as well. Everything from shocking for opponents with electricity to freezing them, and the power of these can be upgraded by gaining adam. How? Just eat little girls. Yeah it sounds weird, but I'll let the game explain it for you.
So what does this game do right? The atmosphere is incredible and really does wonders convincing players of the setting. One of the things about this game I loved was the exploring aspect of it. Everything can be searched, hacked, or broke into to. Multiple paths abound and the best part is that you really can't get lost because there is a big arrow pointing where you need to go! I love that, in addition to this the game will even tell you what you have to do in order to advance, such as collecting certain items. You can't get stuck which is fantastic for a gamer klutz like me. The voice acting, graphics and pace of the game are all bonuses in my opinion and add a little extra to make this a pretty safe buy.
But there are some flaws that keep this game from earning even higher marks. The backtracking will get on your nerves at times. Jeez, it gets irritating having to go back and forth to get little nit picky stuff. Also there is just no need for all of the weapons or powerups in this game. You can literally beat this game with a wrench and a machine gun and no plasmids. So in essence the extra stuff is pretty pointless IMO. It's nice to be able to customize your character's and weapons power's and abilities, but when I don't have to use them, it kind of makes for a letdown. All of that pales into comparison with the grandaddy of all screwups; lack of variety! This game has none. Yes the setting is great, but when all of the areas have a layout where they look the same from beginning to end, well you can sort of get the idea how annoying that can get. There are only like 6 enemies in the whole game. Yep only generic splicers and a couple of human enemies and big brothers that protect the little girls. This gets old pretty quick as well as annoying. And the combat in the second half of the game get downright cheap! Some of these generic enemies takes tons of bullets to kill them. it just seems unbalanced at times. Luckily you can't die, yep you read right. You instantly revive in the last vita chamber you passed. You may think this diminishes from the experience, but you be happy it's there in the second half of the game. One more thing, the ending just plain out sucks!
Yes this game is pretty good, but there are plenty of things that annoy the shit out of me and kept me from giving it a better score. I was a little disappointed, but my stay in Rapture was fun and well worth the money paid to enter. Solid buy, but don't expect it to knock out Halo 1,2 or 3 as best FPS.
