Not as good as I was led to believe
When I saw this game for $20 in my local Gamestop I though "why not?" and decided to buy a copy to see if it lived up to the hype surrounding it. It didn't.
Let me just say that I will not knock the graphics for being 4 years old, however I will criticize them for having little to no difference from the graphics of the xbox version which was released in 2001. When I compare the graphics of this game to other games also released in 2003 I am shocked at how lackluster this game appears. Case and point: Max Payne 2, Freedom Fighters, and Star Wars Knights of the Old republic
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/maxpayne2/index.html
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/freedomthebattleforli/index.html
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/starwarsknightsoftor/index.html
Now on to the campaign. I went into the campaign expecting to be blown away by the most expertly crafted story I'd ever seen in a game. Instead I got a generic "advanced alien race wants to destroy mankind for religious and only one guy can stop them" story that was filled with cliches and was difficult to follow. I found myself thrust into missions with no idea why what I was doing was so important (yes I did watch the cutscenes). And then there was the library level. This level alone was almost enough for me to decide that finishing the game just wasn't worth it. It seemed like it was designed to point out everything bad in that game. From the fact that it was basically the same thing over and over to the fact that they tried to make it scary and failed. For those who haven't played the game already the level basically consisted of running through hallways that all look exactly alike (would it of killed the developers to make the rooms look different from one another?) while my annoying floating companion directed me toward the next objective. And when I got to the doorway to the next bit of the level he would always dash off for some reason and leave me to deal with the hordes of zombies that for some reason always chose that moment to attack me. Yes, I said zombies. Actually they are almost exactly like the headcrabs from Half-Life. I mean would it of killed them to think up an interesting new creature for the segments that try and fail to be scary? I guess it would of, because instead of just going with zombies they had to almost completely copy the concept of alien parasites that attach themselves to people and take over control their bodies from Half-Life.
Now let me say this: The graphics actually look pretty decent in the parts of the game that are outside. Unfortunately most of the game consists of killed generic alien #293 in generic corridor #162. In fact there were times when I became lost just because all the rooms looked the same.
Now I can't really knock the enemy AI because that was pretty good, but the friendly AI doesn't seem to understand the concept of stealth. They will, at all times, run into a room with guns blazing and be promptly killed.
The only thing in this game I can't really find anything bad with is the multipayer. The multiplayer in pretty good, if lacking the depth of other games.
Well, I feel a lot better now that I've put my thoughts on this game out there, even though I expect that this will be voted down by hordes of fanboys who don't even bother to read this.