Bad controls and boring gameplay ruined it for me.
The Bad: Clunky controls. Slow gameplay. Hints to figure out puzzles are too hidden.
The Review: I got this game for me and my daughter, since she's in that girly phaze, where she doesn't like playing the boy games, but wants a girl as the leading character. We both enjoyed it at first, but it got pretty boring pretty fast. While the graphics and speech are pretty good in this game, that's about all it has going for it. Controlling Laura and getting her to do what you want is pretty frustrating as she's just not very responsive. Some games it's easy for me to get used to the controls, even if they're a lil fuzzy, like GTA. But for other games, it can literally ruin the whole experience, especially in games where you do alot of controlling, like this one and Shadow of the Colossus. The combat is kind of sparse, and generally easy when you come across it. Simple gun fights. The lock on and firing, and moving while firing is actually done well. So at least the controls during combat are good. Ah, and then the puzzle solving. I'm no idiot, lol, but this game would have been MUCH better had they at least given you SOME type of hints on how to get to the next part. Even in the Zelda games, they always at least give you a hint. Here, they give you nothing, and many times, I had to resort to an online FAQ to figure it out, and usually, the answer was so hidden, I would never have figured it out on my own. So if I'm frustrated with it, you can imagine my 8 year old daughter's frustration trying to figure it out. So, about 2 hours into the game, we gave up.
Overall, this coulda been a much better game if they tightened up the controls, and gave you hints during the puzzle solving, but as is, it's hard to recommend to anyone other than hardcore fans of the movies or other games in the series.