I'll put in my 2 cents worth.
I finished it in a day.
Its a good game with a nice little "end game" if you will, after the credits. So sit thru the fantastic voice of Charolette Martin, the International Childrens Choir, and the Hollywood Studio Choir along with some fantasticly scored music and you can play one last level.
Now the good and the bad in no particular order.
1)
absolutely some of the worst frame rates i have seen yet on the xbox. DVD or hard drive the game lags something terrible. Even the pre-rendered scenes show sign of lag for some reason. O_o
Why the game lags i have no idea, there are far more graphically advanced games than this one.
The game lags even in enclosed area's such as rooms or hallways. where graphics usage is at a minimum.
Outdoor area's have some lag but not as much as indoors it seems. But they could have cured the outdoor lag with some fog, which you will be hard pressed to find in this game. Its all wide open.
2)
Its a beautiful game with nothing we havent seen before in the special effects area. But none the less it is a good looking game.
3)
Its a mixed bag of games we've already played many times over.
Halo and Halo 2, Psi-Ops(levitation and other psi powers.) Maybe a little Legacy of Kain. (without the blood sucking)
4)
Its an infinite continue system. Which some may find nice and others find cheesy. For me its a little of both. You simply start from the last chekpoint instead of the entire level.
5)
Enemy AI - Very nicely done, They attack in groups with massive firepower which will kill you in a quick hurry if you dont have the Shield Power and the Push power.
6)
Camera angles are spot on for most of the game, there are a few spots the need some work but its nothing horrible.
7)
Targeting, aka "The Flick System"
Its great, but not perfect. Basically all you do is flick your right thumb stick in the area of the next enemy or the one you want to target and your auto-targeting system targets him. Its not without its faults though and it can be hard to target things at times. Or when there are alot of enemies you may spend time cycling thru the enemies to get to the one you want, like the big mech instead of the little guys.
Vehicle driving should have been done another way. It's done the Halo style with your camera controlling the steering of the vehicles, which makes it near impossible to control it at high speeds. which you wont be doing much of.
9)
BUGS
a)
many times during the game you will find yourself at an elevator that wont work or a door that may not open. (99% of the timne its a n elevator) Why does this happen ? i have no idea but i believe, after much testing and frustration its because you and the enmy may have caused too much damage and damaged the lift itself. Yes you heard me correctly. Damaging the environment can sometimes be a bad thing. although most of the time it serves to your advantage to destroy anything and everything.
When the lists dont work your best off to start the level over simply because it seems that the check points are placed at a point where sometimes the lift is already damaged.
I say many times, and i mean many times. enough times you'll want to quit the game and take a breather.
Weapon reloading can take an excessively long time sometimes, enough of a period that you can get yourself killed.
c)
Absolutely the worst lag ive ever seen. Riddick and Doom3 never lagged this bag.
there is no reason for it, other than it was rushed out the door at the last minute without taking the time to optimise the graphics. After being in development for so long i think they pushed it out without tweaking it.
Im surprised their QC lab let it go with the horrible frame rates and 1/2 working elevators.
10)
SOUND
a)
Good voice acting but nothing spectacular.
Cinematic and game play voices are such that there are times where you cant understand them or hear them properly.
An orchestral score that is very smooth and cinematic to the flow of the game.
Although they repeat the same song or variation of the same song throught the entire game which very quickly becomes quite annoying. They could have done different songs instead of the same song over and over and over and over and .. .. .. .. .. ..
c)
weapon and other sounds are done well enough. nothing special nothing bad.
Over all its a great action game that moves along at a nice pace but its a game on Rails. you cant go wandering all over and discover new things, cuz there is no where to go. you are stuck on the beaten path and thats it.
Your character has powers that are seen in the cinematics that you dont have in the game. A better and higher Jump, a Squeeze power that you wont see til the very end of the game. And during the 1st 1/4 of the game when the alien ship is downed and Gideon is falling from the sky he turns himself into a type of meteor, which i think might be the time shifting power.
I was hoping after playing thru it once and starting a new game you would have something special but i was wrong. Its just the same game over and over.
I have to say, aside from the crappy frame rates, and the elevators its a very well laid out game with great graphics, gameplay and storyline.
But it has little to no replay value. This is just another game where if your careful and dont go plowing thru the game like your hellbent to see the credits you can pretty much get everything in the game. Or close to it. so there isnt much of a point of going thru it again.
Multiplayer would be useless as the frame rates would simply create havok for online play and make it impossible to accurately create an online environment.
I like the game but not enough to keep it.
