Score: 3
"Very aggravating"
date: September 1, 2009
The overall feeling I get from this game when I think of it is aggravation because I can see you obviously put effort into this, but the game is absolutely riddled with glitches, most are annoyingly harmless, such as random bloodstains showing up everywhere no matter where you're at, but even the beneficial ones (Katana freezes enemies, while swing arms enemies dies in mere seconds if they get near you, enemies fly through walls away from you, etc.) really hurt the games presentation. Personally I've never had trouble with any of the sniping missions, but mission 9 where you must sneak through the base is glitched beyond belief. Enemies would frequently spot me if I was standing behind cover and even if they weren't onscreen. As far as I can tell stepping into the puddles alerts enemies so I stay away from and there is some other object that I can't even make out that getting near results in an instant game over and is the reason I can't beat the level after I get on the elevator. Every time I so much as step out I get a game over, so I just quit after that.
As far as the levels themselves go, I just didn't have that much fun with them. Most were too short and there wasn't anything to do in them except "Go here, kill this guy, you win". The sniping missions were different for a change but there wasn't a whole lot to them. Sometimes it pays to go the extra mile, such as being able to interact with other NPC's in missions like number 1. As for mission 9, if you regularly have trouble with glitches, I highly recommend you don't do sneaking levels like this. And some fore-warning on the puddles wouldn't have hurt. For combat missions, most people can fight through glitches or at least aren't seriously hampered by them, but one small mess-up with sneaking missions and it can totally screw everything up and even make it impossible to beat. 9 may be possible to beat, but there are just too many areas where enemies magically detect you that I didn't even want to bother trying to figure out where the one safe place in the whole room was. Also, as far as I know, mission 7 requires a remote bomb to get in, but that's not listed as a necessary item.
The combat is simple enough, which is perfectly fine, but as mentioned before, there are some glitches that make combat annoying like the katana glitch. I really wanted to use it but I felt like I was cheating when I did because enemies would stop whatever they were doing and stand there like lumps. On that note, I also feel that a difficulty option would be nice because I actually had to rely on that glitch in the 7th mission because I couldn't beat it otherwise. The enemy AI also needs work. They literally pretty much only move straight towards the player, even if an obstacle is in the way, they will continue walking against the obstacle.
The story itself is okay. I loved the idea of the corporation, but you could've done so much more with it such as a forced mission where you escape from your hideout because you were discovered or something or missions where you have to discover your target before the mission where you get to take them down. It's never real;ly explained how you know all the big shots there or what it is they do exactly. It feels pretty bland the way it is right now. Nothing unexpected, it's just straight forward "Line'em up and knock'em down".
Overall, as I've said, there's some effort here, but the unintuitive story plus the huge glitches just bog this game down to the point that I just cannot give it a good score. I shpuld also mention here that for some reason, when I play survival mode and die, I instantly go into the story mode. If that was intentional, there was really no reason to have a survival button there on the main menu I think. And it's nice the game saves your data, but it should also save your ammo. When I restart the game, all my ammo is reset to as if I had just bought the weapon once. Work out the glitches and add a little more to the story, maybe a bit more variety in the missions, and you'll have something great.
