Genre: First Person Shooter; Sub-genre: Survival Horror
ESRB: M (machine gun violence and gore)
Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 40/16
Developer: Irrational Games
What's great about this retro-review is that I get to totally cheat at my recommendation. Personally I would consider this a weak three stars, maybe even a two, just because the game relies on a lot overly video game-y stuff and it relies on them again and again. But the past six years have shown that pretty much every one loves this game. Funny story, though, I only just played this game within the past few weeks for the first time. So I'm a big, fat fraud and stuff! Wakka wakka!
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| Andrew Ryan. He's inside your brain or something. |
By today's standards, the story is missing some important components. Namely the lack of cutscenes, both in-game and pre-rendered, to tell the story. While it does feel like both a cute throwback and allows the game to flow more naturally, it does have the downside of being unable to show full range of emotions and- possibly more importantly- it is unable to properly tell a story through visuals. That might be fine and dandy by the book-reading types, but this is a visual media! My last complaint is that the story contains twists that don't completely work. On the one hand, the game is good to explain how the player character is so capable. On the other, there are pivotal moments when the bad guys don't use this knowledge to their advantage. Even despite these things, the story flows from level to level and keeps you attached, motivated, and included. I even played the game by ignoring those stupid recordings that people always leave behind in video games.
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| There's these big guys that have way more hit points than anything else. Look out. |
Going back and playing this game and knowing of its commercial and critical success, I can see how so many games have tried to copy it. Certain things were easy to improve upon. The gun handling and powers feel clunky at times, and money management is so obviously made challenging with a simple $500 limit on your wallet. And then there's the hacking; it's the same mini-game for everything throughout the entire game. What games haven't perfected is the level of exploration afforded combined with the mechanics introduced: photography, crafting, and weapon upgrades. If it weren't for the outdated controls, it would still be a top-quality shooter today.
Conclusion:
While I don't think the game is as mind-blowing as people who don't play that many video games say, it certainly contains top quality craftsmanship through and through that will leave most anyone satisfied.
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