Gamespot review was spot on (get it?). Game had potential, but was largely disappointing. A lot of aimless wandering. Shooting mechanics were awkward. Story ends very abruptly and leaves a bunch of unanswered questions.
Music was outstanding. Haunting even. Wish the rest of the game would have lived up to it.
This is typically why I prefer co-op play to competitive. Co-op players tend to be friendlier teammates and it's just a better overall and fun game experience.
I'll be the first to admit, I'm also not a great competitive player (except for Fighter Squadron mode in Battlefront. For some reason I rock at that). In a typical team deathmatch, I'm thrilled when I breakeven on my K/D ratio. But it's a video game. I usually silence all mics because I don't need to listen to other players loudly and offensively complaining (either at me or others), and I certainly don't want to get messages afterwards telling me how bad I am.
Worst part is that your "teammates" are the worst offenders. I'll occasionally get a note from an opposing player giving me jazz for something (like fact he killed me a half dozen times - yes, you're just too good for me), but the really nasty stuff comes from your own teammates.
Just beat on Crushing. Much more difficult than crushing in previous UC titles. Gun battles were extremely challenging, with cover being limited (or temporary with wooden crates, etc.), and issues with running low on ammo. Felt very accomplished when I completed it (then again, I may be easily impressed).
Beat it on hard. Starting to replay on crushing (also trying to find treasures I missed the first time around).
Fabulous game. Sorry to see the series come to an end (although I'm sure they could resurrect it if they wanted).
A couple of interesting gameplay decisions...
1. No ability to throw grenades back (unlike UC3). Makes game much harder. Not a bad thing, just different. I'd say 75% of my deaths were grenade -related (either directly or because I got flushed).
2. No counter / duck ability in melee combat (again, unlike UC3). You can roll out of the way, but that often takes you out of position to counter-punch.
3. Really liked the rope ability. It's a knock-off of the new Tomb Raider games, but it was cleverly employed.
4. No co-op? Very disappointing. UC3 co-op was a lot of fun to play.
I agree with Danny. I'm sort of AC'd out. Found many elements of AC3 somewhat tedious. I'll probably pick up AC4 at some point, but I'm not rushing out to buy it.
I'm certainly not beyond yelling at a screen and saying really stupid things out loud to myself when I'm gaming (hopefully the NSA has not yet installed hidden cameras in our homes because they would have some good blackmail material on me).
However, I am puzzled by people who go way beyond that. I've been playing "Guardians of Middle Earth" on the PS3 for some time now. I'm Ok. Not great at it. It's a fun game, but it doesn't use dedicated servers so connections are problematic. I've had multiple occasions after I've lost my connection to a match where I've gotten profanity laced messages from one of my not-so-friendly teammates to complain that we lost the match because I left the team short-handed. Gets pretty nasty. Do you really think I wanted to lose my connection? (and for the record, I've got a 30mbps cable connection).
It's one thing when you have someone on a mic who makes some hot-headed comment on the spur of a moment, but to go and actually type a message like that is nuts. Doesn't a light bulb go off as you're typing that this is taking it a little too far? Apparently not for some people.
It's a ridiculous chicken and egg argument. Do video games make people violent? Or would a violent (and mentally unstable) individual naturally gravitate to violent video games? You can go around on that all day.
I'm sure there's a study out there somewhere that probably shows gaming saves lives by giving violent people an outlet.
I've liked the Tomb Raider series. The old games look comically bad now but at the time they were a lot of fun. However, that does not apply to Angel of Darkness. It was a horrible game. The bit where you had to do random actions to "get stronger" so you could do other actions was stupid. Controls were just abysmal. They added a second playable character, but it felt tacked on. Just on and on. Thankfully, Crystal Dynamics came on board after that and saved the series.
@gamerboy100 Good point. Never really thought of that. So eventually when there's not enough traffic, Blizzard will shut down Diablo III, so even if I want to go back to play it I'll be out of luck.
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