Hmn. Where to start, eh? 8/10 from both Games TM and Edge (and the latter gave it eight despite slating the single-player to kingdom come) is a good start, but what's it like?
Ah-um. It's OK. That's based on an evening of play. Not got much time to type this up, but in brief:
the single player is an abomination. Over-accurate shotguns, under-accurate cursor, a jumping-between-any-visible-player mechanic that does actually work some of the time, but is just annoying more of the time. Crap voice overs. And if you thought Burnout Revenge was bad for awarding *everything you do*, this is worse. I got a medal for 25 yards of freefall. A medal for five kills in a row with the shotgun. A medal for "hot-swapping" 250 yards. A medal for tying my own shoelaces. And then lots of points, stars, medals, ribbons when the level is over. ****e.
multi-player, mechanically, is good. Conquest (capturing spawns, gaining "tickets") is more popular than CTF (only other mode). Lovely spawning mechanic, much like Wolfenstein; really easy to swap "kits" (classes), and you're not penalised for it. If the team needs more engineers, choose that next time you spawn, but you can go special-forces once you've taken out those pesky tanks.
Voicecomms, annoyingly, is proximity based, and you have to *hold white* to teamtalk. A step back from Halo 2 and Ghost Recon 2, then.
Weapons are fairly meaty; the physics are quite a lark, in a daft way. Vehicles are great - swapping between positions works, they control like Far Cry (left stick for accelerate, brake, left right) but right stick aims weaponry, not your head, so less of a headache. Black swaps positions in the vehicle, and several have lots of transport slots. Helicopters are rightly hard to control, and very rewarding when it works - pilot, gunner, two troops in the transport bit of a Hind, bombing across the map, rocketing targets, and then ejecting in mid air to continue the battle on foot, or dropping troops off on rooves. Very hard, but very rewarding.
Balance. Hmn. Snipers are over-powered, basically. And in one game, I said to my team "****, we've got tanks at spawn 2, anyone got any rockets?". To which an American kid replied "shut up, we've totally got like three snipers in their spawn".
And that's the real problem - community. Really hoping there'll be some Brits online soon. Online is great - nice rank/stats management, and nice clan-management too. Lousy friends list, but it's still better than Burnout Revenge. And the 22 player games I've had so far have been VERY VERY lag free. Like, smoother than Halo 2 at points.
So: if you want to play with like minded people in a game that's *nothing like* Halo 2, get this, and stick me on your friends list. I'm pretty sure it has the potential to be *great* - with teamwork and friends - but hanging around with randoms can get depressing.
Oh, and graphically: a bit blurry, but lovely, huge maps, good framerate. Above-average for Renderware, certainly.
Ah-um. It's OK. That's based on an evening of play. Not got much time to type this up, but in brief:
the single player is an abomination. Over-accurate shotguns, under-accurate cursor, a jumping-between-any-visible-player mechanic that does actually work some of the time, but is just annoying more of the time. Crap voice overs. And if you thought Burnout Revenge was bad for awarding *everything you do*, this is worse. I got a medal for 25 yards of freefall. A medal for five kills in a row with the shotgun. A medal for "hot-swapping" 250 yards. A medal for tying my own shoelaces. And then lots of points, stars, medals, ribbons when the level is over. ****e.
multi-player, mechanically, is good. Conquest (capturing spawns, gaining "tickets") is more popular than CTF (only other mode). Lovely spawning mechanic, much like Wolfenstein; really easy to swap "kits" (classes), and you're not penalised for it. If the team needs more engineers, choose that next time you spawn, but you can go special-forces once you've taken out those pesky tanks.
Voicecomms, annoyingly, is proximity based, and you have to *hold white* to teamtalk. A step back from Halo 2 and Ghost Recon 2, then.
Weapons are fairly meaty; the physics are quite a lark, in a daft way. Vehicles are great - swapping between positions works, they control like Far Cry (left stick for accelerate, brake, left right) but right stick aims weaponry, not your head, so less of a headache. Black swaps positions in the vehicle, and several have lots of transport slots. Helicopters are rightly hard to control, and very rewarding when it works - pilot, gunner, two troops in the transport bit of a Hind, bombing across the map, rocketing targets, and then ejecting in mid air to continue the battle on foot, or dropping troops off on rooves. Very hard, but very rewarding.
Balance. Hmn. Snipers are over-powered, basically. And in one game, I said to my team "****, we've got tanks at spawn 2, anyone got any rockets?". To which an American kid replied "shut up, we've totally got like three snipers in their spawn".
And that's the real problem - community. Really hoping there'll be some Brits online soon. Online is great - nice rank/stats management, and nice clan-management too. Lousy friends list, but it's still better than Burnout Revenge. And the 22 player games I've had so far have been VERY VERY lag free. Like, smoother than Halo 2 at points.
So: if you want to play with like minded people in a game that's *nothing like* Halo 2, get this, and stick me on your friends list. I'm pretty sure it has the potential to be *great* - with teamwork and friends - but hanging around with randoms can get depressing.
Oh, and graphically: a bit blurry, but lovely, huge maps, good framerate. Above-average for Renderware, certainly.
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