Ok this is going to be a quick one because I'm a bit constrained on time here, but I also want to get first impressions on this one. Thankfully Redbox rental service answered to my waiting woes and now I'm playing the game without risk of spoiling it before it hits $40-20 price range. So how is it? Well... mostly good, but I'm not going to hide its problems. Button prompts and QTEs are quite common and not always handled with the best impact, the cover system is a bit wacky (getting shot has made me stand up as if that's somehow a good idea), and misc dialogue is ridiculously quiet. Oh and if I were to get real nitpicky, they have these readable news papers with print so tiny I'm getting up close just to read them, and its a full newspaper article. Last of Us did that right, give us optional game text. Its more immersive breaking to squint at a TV than it is to have a convenient text prompt. I also had to skip out on an entire letter because of its scribbled up handwriting, but it was clearly still meant to be read. It'd also be great if combat had more impact to it. It feels gritty and shows blood, but the impact still feels like something out of a soft uncharted feeling where you're shooting sacks instead of people. Its not the bullet sponge bit (again last of us comes to mind... hey, I think the game is slightly overrated but it still is a masterpiece worth comparing to), its more of how they just react to it and the limited use of blood. Oh well. I might say that the wolves are a pain to fight, but honestly I think that might be because I'm trying this out on Hard for as long as I can.
Anyways now on with the good: The game's plot is very compelling, characters are interesting, graphics are superb and don't make many clear compromises (bodies stay thankfully), weapons feel good to fire despite my earlier aesthetic complaint, and the world is just fun to take part in. I'm going to basically sumarize the game as Gears of Rain. It feels a lot like a David Cage game with its heavy use of cut-scenes and character narrative, but yet giving you plenty of interaction space with guided white dots to your next interactive bit. You walk around casually, analyze stuff, watch some scenes, and then you're thrown into standard 3rd person shooter mode where you shoot up the rebels or wolves and that's a generalization of the game for you. Throw over the steampunk look, a neat plot, and a competent gameplay aspect, and I'd say yeah its overall fun. I love looking at things around the towns, I enjoy hearing the plot and context, I've stuck around to overhear extra audio, and I'm enjoying the combat enough. As for cut-scenes, my only gripe thus far is that it did one of those start with the future things and it kind of gives away any chance of a surprise for the main character's path, but by contrast everything else is good and I loved the first round table meeting. Its certainly not horrible as some want to make it out to be, but its nothing to take top spot of about any kind of list.
So overall its certainly worth grabbing so far, just not proving to me that I was wrong for skipping out on it at launch as its really not something I see $60 worth in. I might gladly return to the world at a lesser price, but of course first I need to finish the first tour here. I'll try and put together a review as well as a solid discussion on cinematic gaming at another time, but for now I need to keep at it while I have it. I want to do some more exploration, get more of the plot, and see the combat evolve as I go along with it all. Plus I've got an eye out for a sackboy easter egg I've been told about.
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