Recent reviews by inc

When the game sets the scene at the beginning it fails to do enough to justify the entire premise of the game's plot. It basically hand waves over the fall of South Korea, Japan, and the United States without any sort of plausible satisfactory explanation given. It's a generic shooter with a poor plot and I would say no redeeming qualities but I did enjoy the spectacle of the finale with the fight on the Golden Gate bridge. However, I wouldn't recommend you slog through the game just to reach that part as the finale doesn't do enough to offset the trudge through mediocrity that is this game.

The enemies are blatantly evil with no attempt to humanise them. I would say it feels like playing a red necks wet dream come power fantasy except the game fails at even that as it has you fighting red necks halfway through.

Clunky movement and unresponsive gunplay. Weapons feel like they have no weight and your character feels like he's running through molasses the entire time. The game really hurts from a lack of proper lean around cover system. The grenade indicators are ambiguous at best and I found myself dying to them a few times in what felt like less my fault for playing poorly but my fault for failing to interpet correctly the tea leaves that are the grenade icon. The companions are brain dead and run headfirst tinto enemies then stand in front of them tanking bullets while staring into their eyes until they have the sudden realisation that maybe they should fire back.

While the friendly AI is interchangeable with a headless chicken the enemy AI oscillates wildly between gormless cardboard cutouts that refuse to shoot you and Aimbot McGee 5000. It doesn't help that several times in the game I would run ahead after killing all the enemires and round a corner only to be greeted by 10 freshly spawned enemies all staring at me because I was killing them too fast and the game couldn't keep up with it.

Half the game feels like waiting for NPCs to catch up with you as they walk with all the urgency of a dog going to the vets to get its bollocks removed. The waiting gets tiring quickly and makes the game feel extremely dated. It's even worse with ladders where you will stand under one and be forced to wait for the NPCs to catch up then clip through your body and reach the top before you can set foot on the first rung of the ladder. Even worse this often happens 3 times and had me waiting close to a minute at times. The sections of the game that have you walking without your weapon are even more boring. The only joy I found from these sections was to spam jump and be impressed by my characters excessively springy legs are as the camera moves up and down about 5 feet every second.

The characters of the NPCs themselves are one dimensional and boring. They are completely unlikable with any moral objections they raise being dropped in the very next breath. There is an unintentionally hilarious moment when one of the characters accidentally (and unbelievably, how this would ever happen I don't know and the game doesn't even bother to explain it) launches white phosphorus at you and your allies and then asks if everyone is okay. Meanwhile said everyone is screaming and running around on fire. This is immediately followed by another explosion as an enemy lets out the classic Wilhelm scream as he goes rag-dolling across in front of you.

At one point in the game I was killed by a helicopter as it was impossible to obtain a lock before it fired and killed me. Second time around the same thing happened but this time it missed so I could lock on and then kill it. Another moment of frustration was during sniper stages when I'd either get game over for firing a millisecond before I was told to and therefore alerting everyone - even though nothing actually changed between the time I was penalising for firing and the time I fired. Later on in that mission even though you may have the shot you still must wait till you are told to take it or face a game over screen. Because... reasons? Feels like overly restrictive game design. The helicopter in the helicopter section flies like garbage with no weight to it and a leaving mission alarm will blare if you stray even an inch away from the road below.


The game itself cannot even handle Alt-F4 correctly and spits out several error messages before it closes this way.

I can't say I recommend the game for the finale even though the campaign is 3 hours long so the slog and pain of this game is mercifully short.

One of the games that helped define the term "Arkham-style combat" so the combat is good as expected as well as a plot that keeps you hooked and carries the game well.

It's more of Half Life 2 so it's impossible for it not to be good. The greatest sin it commits is not having a sequel.

A Great Action-Adventure game. Enjoyable combat and story. On max settings the game looks gorgeous and the graphics hold up even a decade later.

Pretty sure I just hate puzzle platformers as a genre. Nothing wrong with the game but nothing about it captivated me. At least it was short. If you're someone who doesn't enjoy 2d platformers this isn't going to change your mind.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere and storytelling in this game. As someone who never played point and click Adventure games before there were some times I found the puzzles obtuse or confusing. I think much of that comes down to not being familiar with the design language of these sorts of games. I'd recommend not being afraid to open up a walkthrough if you get stuck on a puzzle for too long. This game is worth not putting down out of frustration.

I played with the director's commentary enabled. It was unobtrusive and activated with a button prompt whenever there was a point of interest and it really added something to my playthrough. Getting an insight into development, the game's limitations, and how things were done was really enjoyable.

Numbers go up. I like when numbers are bigger

One of the best atmospheres and world building in a game. It feels like you are living through Artyom's story. Great shooting and stealth mechanics. Nothing I say will do it justice, the redux collection is a must buy,