I can't believe I finished the game this quickly. I'm not sure how much time it took, but I started playing on Saturday and finished Tuesday night. I ate the game up.
A quick review? This game is like Black and Halo 2 put together with a touch of Splinter Cell.
I think a huge plus factor, again, was the lack of load times and cut scenes. I just kept playing and playing because I never had any real visual cues that a chapter had ended and another one started. It would be like reading a book with no chapters, you'd wouldn't quit until you got tired and fell asleep. The action is almost non-stop. There are few times where you find yourself walking down sections of map where absolutely nothing happens. But I think that was intentional. It did help set the mood. In a factory setting, Wretches would be climbing in the ceiling and under the floors and bang on doors make noises to creep you out. In the Locust hive caves, steam vents would burst and rocks would fall. I wouldn't quite say it was on Resident Evil 4's level, but I did jump in my skin once or twice. There is always something to make you not put the controller down. I did notice that whenever the characters used their radios, they would be forced to walk slow. I'll assume that's where they hid the loading. Faux cut-scenes. Nice.
Graphically, this game is gorgeous. It's like playing a pre-rendered movie. Things were, at some times, a little too shiny though. And some shadows, especially on the character's faces where a little patchy. But zoom up on a COG's muscles and you can see skin texture and veins. Actually you can see it far away as well because the engine never layers the textures as you get closer to save memory. And there is no texture drop-in as you quickly spin around a corner and take off down the road.
The sound was probably the biggest issue technically. There were a lot of times I could hear someone talking, usually a Locust, and they would be no where to be seen. And I mean loud like right-next-to-you loud. It was usually a dead give away I was either coming up on them or they were following me. And this problem must have carried through to the collision detection because I once, just once, shot a guy standing on the other side of a doorway. His gun poked through and that was last "poking" he ever did, if you know what I mean.
Of course you don't.
And again, like in Splinter Cell, I got so caught up in the game that I would black out on parts of the story. The last level takes place on a train and I had no idea why I was there and what the point of the mission was. I really should have remembered in GoW because I felt the game was so short. But dying a lot in a few sections must have been long enough to forget with my short memory. I know one thing, trying to figure out how to kill the last boss made me remember that opening dialogue from the Ops character. I know I have to "dump the data". Shut up about it already and tell me how to kill that big ass Locust! I don't think cut-scenes would have helped, just have the characters talk about it the mission more while they run around in the non-action places. If we want games to be more theatrical, let the characters talk a little more (just don't do it a lot of you keep dying in the same section, note above).
The last level was probably the most difficult part of the game. It was really the only time in the game that they gave you something specific to do but didn't say you had to or could kill the big ass dude guarding it. I must have died 25 times trying to figure that very last section out. There was so much going on that you had to test out lots of things to figure out what you needed to do. But it also felt really old-school. Something that was so hard to do that once you did it you were immediately surprised (and proud).
As for the controls, well, they could use a bit of touch up. After seeing how easy it is to use cover in Rainbow 6: Vegas, using the A button to get behind cover feels cumbersome and tacky. Having to hold down the left trigger in R6, it made it feel tense and sweaty like being behind cover should be. The A button had moments when it wouldn't work. You had to be just at the right place at the right speed to use cover quickly. And then there is the way you could run up to cover and hit A about 10ft back and you slide up to the cover faster than you were running. Handy? Oh yes! Makes sense? Not really. A barrel roll up to cover doesn't work, but sliding does?
And the weapons could have been mapped to the buttons a little better. Changing guns is fine to have mapped to the d-pad, but grenades should always be a secondary button somewhere. I never used the left bumper for locating my guys (a crappy directional circle with no distance indication). Put the grenades there. Because half the time my team would just heal themselves miraculously and I wouldn't have to bother with doing it myself. Halo must have spoiled me with always available grenades.
But now that I'm done, I'll definetly go back and give the harder settings a try and try to find more of the dog tags. I've only got 12 of 30, so they must be really well hidden. I also started playing multiplayer last night and immediately found a good crew. Hopefully I have some friend requests waiting for me at home and we start up again. First impressions are that people tend to play it like Halo. But using the game's duck and cover mechanics should prove pretty beneficial. Though I'll still probably suck balls.
