Very early days in this - played it for about an hour so far which is barely scratching the surface.
Playing the 360 version which looks pretty decent visually. Seems to lack any kind of anti-aliasing resulting in some terribly rough edges (noticeable on faces in particular so far) but character and environment detail is pretty good and it all runs at a consistent solid framerate. The rendition of Hong Kong is excellent - populated with a lot of characters, some excellent audio and high in detail which gives it a terrific ambience.
The story seems to be taking its beats from Infernal Affairs, although being a videogame it comes across more like a Channel 5 TV drama remake in its writing. Still, the voice actors do a decent job with their delivery for the most part, although the more generic NPCs have typically awful VO work, as is standard in open world games.
As an undercover cop, you appear to have to balance your loyalties to either the police of the Triads who you're infiltrating. Doing good deeds seems to give your Cop points, being particularly violent contributes to your Triad points. After every mission, a summary screen shows how you've contributed to each of these, although I have no idea where this ultimately leads as of yet.
Vehicles seem a bit stiff-yet-twitchy so far, but signposting destinations is done pretty well - can't see me taking any wrong turns while on the road, although narrowing down specific objective markers can be misleading on foot.
The on-foot action stuff is actually pretty well handled so far - there have been a couple of on-foot chases, reminiscent of the first Assassin's Creed. Holding the sprint button, then tapping the button to hurdle/climb obstacles without missing a beat is satisfying and looks the business. The brawling has clearly taken Batman: AA as its inspiration with punches and countering being the order of the day. There's also an interesting grapple feature which highlights certain areas of the environment - ushering a grappled opponent into one of these triggers an environmental takedown for additional Triad points. There's also a meter that fills during combat that seems to refill your health when it's full. No idea if there's any more to it than that or not.
As with GTAIV, you also come equipped with a smartphone, giving you updated police reports on characters you encounter and the ability to use its camera.
So, yeah, so far it's been a pretty good experience and I'm keen to get stuck into it further, mostly to see if the richness of the opening areas of the game extend to the rest of the open world - if so, it'll be a great place to explore. Nothing's particularly stood out as being rubbish as of yet - it's all been very solid and inoffensive gameplay-wise, but there's definitely an overwhelming been-there feeling to the whole experience.
Edit: What the deuce? I never even wrote "review" once, let alone twice!
It's a set-up!
Playing the 360 version which looks pretty decent visually. Seems to lack any kind of anti-aliasing resulting in some terribly rough edges (noticeable on faces in particular so far) but character and environment detail is pretty good and it all runs at a consistent solid framerate. The rendition of Hong Kong is excellent - populated with a lot of characters, some excellent audio and high in detail which gives it a terrific ambience.
The story seems to be taking its beats from Infernal Affairs, although being a videogame it comes across more like a Channel 5 TV drama remake in its writing. Still, the voice actors do a decent job with their delivery for the most part, although the more generic NPCs have typically awful VO work, as is standard in open world games.
As an undercover cop, you appear to have to balance your loyalties to either the police of the Triads who you're infiltrating. Doing good deeds seems to give your Cop points, being particularly violent contributes to your Triad points. After every mission, a summary screen shows how you've contributed to each of these, although I have no idea where this ultimately leads as of yet.
Vehicles seem a bit stiff-yet-twitchy so far, but signposting destinations is done pretty well - can't see me taking any wrong turns while on the road, although narrowing down specific objective markers can be misleading on foot.
The on-foot action stuff is actually pretty well handled so far - there have been a couple of on-foot chases, reminiscent of the first Assassin's Creed. Holding the sprint button, then tapping the button to hurdle/climb obstacles without missing a beat is satisfying and looks the business. The brawling has clearly taken Batman: AA as its inspiration with punches and countering being the order of the day. There's also an interesting grapple feature which highlights certain areas of the environment - ushering a grappled opponent into one of these triggers an environmental takedown for additional Triad points. There's also a meter that fills during combat that seems to refill your health when it's full. No idea if there's any more to it than that or not.
As with GTAIV, you also come equipped with a smartphone, giving you updated police reports on characters you encounter and the ability to use its camera.
So, yeah, so far it's been a pretty good experience and I'm keen to get stuck into it further, mostly to see if the richness of the opening areas of the game extend to the rest of the open world - if so, it'll be a great place to explore. Nothing's particularly stood out as being rubbish as of yet - it's all been very solid and inoffensive gameplay-wise, but there's definitely an overwhelming been-there feeling to the whole experience.
Edit: What the deuce? I never even wrote "review" once, let alone twice!
It's a set-up!
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