Decent enough Japanese shooter.
The main pillar of this game is the gameplay. It's pretty fluid but I still find the consolized running slightly sluggish. The first 20 minutes of the game are kind of boring and slow but the game gradually picks up the pace. The plot is convoluted at first but you eventually realize the gravity of the invasion of the dormant sleeper cyborgs which is pretty cool.
Back to the gameplay, there are the usual steps like take cover, shoot, gather the pulse charge, throw the grenade AND.... order your teammates to either cover you, advance or hold the ground. At the very beginning of the game the trust level between you and your team mates is pretty low though so do not expect them to always follow your orders. For instance if you tell them to charge the advancing robots, your partner will basically tell you off.
Well, the story is okay. There are a few good dramatic moments. The story not only focuses on you and your team mates but also on the gangs and the law enforcement. So it is nice to see the game world unfold through different vantage points. You get to interact with your team mates as well as other miscellaneous characters during the game. You can choose different dialogue options the outcome of which will influence your team mates' level of trust towards you.
There are annoyances though. Most of the time your AI team mates will keep saying the same thing over and over again should you venture away from them. They will say things like "Sam, over here!", "Sam, you are going the wrong way", "Sam, what are you doing? Grab that grenade launcher".
So yeah, on one hand there is communication with your team mates, but on the other hand there is a limited amount of one liners to be thrown around.
Another MAJOR annoyance is the inability to turn off music, that's right. The incessant battle rock will keep playing almost every time you are in a major engagement. I was really hoping they would tweak the PC version better and give us the opportunity to get rid of music for maximum immersion. This kind of thing ruins many games for me. I mean it is EASY to implement that option in games.
I felt like some of the checkpoints were not equally balanced. I had to restart my progress way back because the checkpoint was placed way to far. Such examples include the water chase stage and the highway chase stage.
The water looks atrocious, seriously. It's like this horrid looking gray sheet that you cover yourself with every night.
Another annoyance is that even though your character speaks in cut scenes, your character NEVER says anything during in-game dialogue which is kind of sloppy. They could have easily programmed the number of various responses into the dialogue, so I know they just got lazy.
I also didn't like the level design much. I know it is a small thing to gripe about but I just didn't feel that inspiration from visiting the various locations in the game. I mean the skyscraper stages are nice but some of the industrial areas are pretty boring. Some levels are as boring as visiting a box factory. I think what could have helped is the vivid background animation. Just throw in some background activity like running civilians, passing cars, machinery producing somethings, etc. The metropolis just kind of felt empty.
Some smaller flying enemies in re-spawin a couple of times in the game which is a no no in my book. The enemy AI is also not particularly smart. They rely on firepower and numbers more than agility and taking cover.
As you progress through the game, you will meet certain soldiers of different nationalities. You will even meet a peaceful robot. Some of the missions will give you a chance to choose different partners. You can only only have 2 partners at a time. Each friendly AI has a different weapon and specialization. You get to keep 3 health syringes and so do your team mates. When you are down you can either use your syringe or ask them to use theirs to pick you up. There are various weapons in the game
In many ways the game reminded me of Vanquish although that game had a much faster pace. The boss fights are pretty cool but most of the time it is still about finding the vulnerable spots and shooting those. There are also some cool set pieces but the dated animations detracted from having too much fun. I just did not find the graphics all that compelling in general.
For the most part the game holds up. It is fun killing robots, conserving your ammo, working with your teammates and getting out of near impossible situations. As you kill enemies, you accumulate credits which you can use for upgrading weapons. You can beat about half the game and only be able to fully upgrade your basic assault rifle. There are also not as many robot models - around 5-6, not counting the sometimes bigger enemies.
The game also screams for co-op campaign. They could have easily implemented it here since you are never alone during the campaign.