Dark, cold, brutal and awesome
You are Ethan Thomas, an FBI agent specialising in hunting down serial killers. You are brought into a crime scene with two brutally murdered bodies. As the investigation progresses, were you contact the forensic specialist Rosa over the phone, transferring photos and print samples to her with your high-tec forensic tools, you soon find out that The Matchmaker, a serial killer on Ethan Thomas's list, was the one who committed this crime. Just then your fellow FBI agent hears a noise and you are sent off to investigate the place with nothing but your trusty low-on-ammo pistol, a flashlight, a taser gun and quite literally a prayer on the lips. As you get closer to the criminal, you are ripped off from your pistol, the agents get killed with your gun and their blood is on your head. Then the chase begins as you get pulled into this twisted crime story where everything is not what it had seemed before.
What catches your attention immediately after you are put into action is the mood. Its not the graphics or the sound, its the mood the game sets. Its dark, cold and you are always alert, your heart pounding against your chest moving around a dark corridor unaware of what lies ahead. There is always a level of uncertainty in this game. You sometimes expect something to happen but it doesnt and then in a spilt second when you think you are safe you are getting chopped away angrily by a bunch of inhuman crack addicts, who more or less looks like zombies with great agility, lustily vying for your blood and every bit of it.
What makes this 'mood' more engaging is the graphics. The perfect rendition of lighting and shadows gives your surrounding a more near realistic feel to it. There were moments were I was just left spell bounded by the sheer rendering of those amazing textures dipped in perfect shadows, all I could think was 'Wow'. And for the fact that the physics engine possibly makes every little thing movable makes for an unmatchable experience. You can kick around a ball which just came out of nowhere or move the chair by giving it a little push. Of course, not everything is movable as some areas are meant to block your way and this is not Half Life 2 were your adorable gravity gun can give some help.
No doubt the graphics are excellent but there were areas with low fuzzy textures and flickering shadows which becomes more and more noticeable further in the game. The character models left much to be desired. The motion capture technology has been certainly put into good use giving the characters very realistic movements. But the textures and design were average and low in quality. The baddies dont look horrifying at all which I am sure makes a lower impact on the senses somewhere.
The graphics are then matched with excellent sound. It will immediately remind you of F.E.A.R. Everything has a sound. I played the game through Zalman's 5.1 Headphones and the experience was mind blowing. I would jump around fanatically on a sound of a tumbling bucket only to find out that it was me who kicked it in the first place. Then the rustling and rumbling of cabinets and shelfs, that occasional cough or the 'You are Dead' spoken by some invisible being behind you makes you spin around in shock and terror. The voice acting is top notch too just like the rest of the incredible sound. There was no hint of boredom or clueless ness in the actor’s voice (unlike Prey) and the actors have done a good job sounding their part.
As you move around the addicts filled levels you equip yourself with the best possible weapon you can find. The game is more melee inclined so you will be hard pressed to find machines guns and ammo cartages lying around in every nook and corner of the game. Your weapons are what you would actually use to keep yourself alive if you were in the same situation as the main protagonist. You would use the pipes, the 2x4 wood planks, cutters, desks, sign boards, axe, and hammers etc which are lying around you. No denying that you occasionally find a pistol or a shotgun or maybe even a sub machine but there are usually low on ammo and there are literally no ammo packs that you will find. You can also use your taser gun which can electrify your enemy and give you a 2-3 second head start in kicking their butts. Really helps in a crowd.
The combat system is pretty basic and nothing you havent seen before. You get to swing around your weapon or use it to block. You can also kick around which doesnt do much good. What it actually offers is a realistic feel to the melee combat system. It forces you to use some tactics before you land that blow on your foe. It's as if you yourself are fighting. You stumble backwards when you get slammed by a hammer or you feel it when that axe has cut through the skin. The system makes it more challenging by allowing you to carry just one weapon at a time. Every weapon has its advantages and disadvantages. Some are slow but with better damage and block rate and some quicker with better reach but doesnt do as much as damage as the other weapon. The choice is in your hands.
The A.I is brilliant. If they think that you might empower them they run away and await you in corner ready to pounce on you. The physics comes into full use here were the enemies react to every blow, stumble backwards, groans with pain catching their body and then sling that hammer right on to your face with anger. They also run away to find a better more powerful weapon if their current weapon is damaged. You also have your special moves assigned on your number buttons where you get to kick, slam, and break neck them to death. Of course this is not a Tekken so you dont have a combination of buttons to perform those special moves neither do you get to do them all the time.
What sores out is the blocking mechanism. The fact that you cannot block all the time, like in Oblivion, makes the game a tad bit unfair only because you would need a good hand-eye coordination to get a successful block and even then sometimes the block get penetrated by an attack and more so because your enemies has a 100% block rate. They even can instantly hit back after being banged by a huge hammer which is not possible for you as a player. You tend to stumble all the time. But I guess this was a deliberate attempt to make the game a little more challenging?
Monolith has also added some CSI elements to the game. You have your set of forensic tools which you use to gather forensic evidence of the killers and their victims. You would be collecting hand or foot prints, taking blood or other organic samples or just use your gas meter to locate that dead body you have been looking for. This is simply to move the story forward as your collected evidences are transferred to Rosa where its being processed and decoded giving out various story tit-bits. The system automatically gives you an indication that some evidence can be found in this area and then goes ahead and selects the correct tool for you. You just have to press a key and enjoy the show. The player has no real interaction other than aiming the tools in the right direction. This is a real disappointment as this could have been implemented more properly giving the player some scope to perform some real tests.
There is no multiplayer support and I can see why.
This is one of the best first person shooters I have ever played. If you have liked F.E.A.R or are a fan of the horror genre this game is worth the buck. The mood is so strong through the game and the story so engagingly presented almost giving it a movie like feel with its excellent cut scenes. I had zero expectations from this game and even more after watching the mediocre opening credits but as I got more engaged in this game I was completely blown away.
PROS:
-Story presentation
-Excellent shadows and lighting
-Great environmental sounds and voice acting
-Atmosphere
-AI
CONS:
-The little bugs in the combat system and AI
-The game can be quite hardware intensive
-Flickering shadows
-Forensic tools system was a disappointment
-You cannot switch off your lights.