User Reviews (21 - 21 of 21)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Thinks too highly of itself, ultimately extremely frustrating.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Many of the other reviewers have very similar feelings.

At first the game seems interesting, unique, fancy, innovative, and pretty. Not long into it you'll begin to encounter the very real problems the game has. Controlling your character with any precision is impossible. You can select first person, which is painfully sluggish, but the game forces you back into 3rd person most of the time. 3rd person _looks_ really nice, and I can respect the artist's vision of the world. Trying to actually function in 3rd person is a whole different thing: completely frustrating. The camera is rarely where you want it to be looking. At many points in the game you may have to resort to hand to hand combat, which will be forced in the 3rd person, and will make you want to throw your fancy wireless remote right out of the window, followed by the XBOX and TV, still plugged into the wall. At least hand to hand, while completely worthless in this game, isn't like Silent Hill: no stance fighting. But: basically as useless.

The inventory system, while it seems innovative, is actually quite stale once you get a bit into the game. It's also extremely clunky and hard to use under duress. The healing system, too, at first seems innovative, but is actually quite obnoxious. Let's face it, they were neat ideas on a white board in a room full of excited marketing guys -- but in reality they don't work well. The game boasts this open style combination system. Flammable liquid in container, tape, box of bullets, throw at bad guy, shoot, repeat. Put alcohol on bullets, aim for little cracks in baddies, shoot repeatedly because the targeting system is crappy, repeat. There really isn't much too it after you've done it a few times. One little gripe here: the eye blinking spectral vision thing. Yes, push down and hold the right thumbstick which is also what you'd need to use to aim, precisely, on a moving target, to kill it. Who play tested this, and where can I find them? I'd like to have a little dialog with them about this subject.

Vehicle driving... man, what can I say? Nothing like tapping a 3" curb and watching the vehicle fly up into the air and shed all of it's fenders in one motion. You can do some neat things with vehicles... cut open the gas tanks, fill bottles, use them as rolling bombs, all kinds of things. Too bad the interface sucks so bad that it's hard to pull any of that stuff off. Once again: it sounds neat, but doesn't work out that way.

To be fair, I haven't completed the game as of yet. Honestly, while I like to see things through, I may not. Some of the puzzles are, frankly, very annoying. Some of the stuff is very... cryptic and without any real clue of what is happening. Sometimes you'll find yourself somewhere, nothing is happening, and you don't really know what to do next. Other times the solution is so obvious and streamlined that it is a wonder they put it in at all. The story is not engaging. The story doesn't even make sense in a few places.

I could go on and on, but basically I am very disappointed in this game. The fire effects are out of this world, the environments are decent, water is awesome, and there is some definite lighting/atmosphere neatness... but that's about it. Otherwise, the game is very awkward, repetitive, confusing, and above all else: frustrating. It's just not the game it could be, and it's not the game that was advertised. This is no surprise, none the less, it is what it is.

I really wanted this game to be spooky, creepy, innovative, cool, engaging, and immersive. It's not. It's just a waste of time and money.

Review Page: 1 2 3 

Actions