The “Break it Down” Blog

Summary

• Incredible Visuals and Audio
• Too short, needs to be twice as long for the price
• Too much vague story references to the point where you can’t tell if they are TRYING to hook story into the game, or just making asides. The disappointing part is that the vague story reference could potentially be awesome, but they never go into it.

Graphics are awesome. If you played the Riddick game, it’s very similar. DEEP contrasts between light and dark using bump mapping to create big
contrasts for things like scars and lines. Overall very cool. Only a few scenes have been jerky and it was during cut scenes, not during the game.

Use of HDR is incredible in the game. Also there is one scene where you need to use a proton light gun of some kind and the shader effect is just…
well it made me tremble it looks so nice.

Sound is great, story is decent. There are some sequences where you go to do run an elevator and they are like “Go find the generator” and your arms
just slump because that’s such a cliched sequence by now… but that’s only happened like 2 times, the rest is pretty crazy non stop action.

There are a few sequences where they REALLY start to hint at a story, but from what I read I’m almost done with the game with the help of Laurence so
it sounds like they are leaving all the story for #2 or atleast I’m assuming they are.

Multiplayer is totally seamless. I’m playing the game and invite Laurence and it simply replaces one of my squad mates that are AI with Laurence.
Unfortunately co-op is limited to 2 people right now, but multiplayer is 4 (2 on 2 I believe).

I’d say the game is really good for FPS fans out there, but I can’t help but think back to the Riddick game, escape from butcher bay, which is
graphically awesome, had a long story and about 25hrs of game play where as this around 10 hours of game play… something about that short game play
REALLY sticks in my craw. If they do addons over Live for it, I’ll come back around… but $70 for 10hours of play is just not enough for me,
especially if it takes them another 2 years to come out with GOW #2 for another $50-70… that will flat out piss me off (and I’ll still probably get
it).

The voice acting and character design in the game is my FAVORITE. These guys aren’t just muscular… they are freakishly large monsters… it’s totally
manly.

I’d say if you love FPSs, get it. I’d say if you like them, probably get it, and I’d say if you historically don’t like them (Grant?) that to either
rent this or skip it entirely. It’s by no means so revolutionary that even players that don’t like run-and gun should get it… it’s still THAT type of
game… but it’s just done so well, there is more gray area now as to who would like to play it or not.

Overall, I’d say I’m so-so about spending $70 on it ($64 technically). If it was $40 I’d say “It was a great choice”, but it’s not ,and I don’t feel
like I hvae gotten or will get $70 worth of entertainment out of this, especially when you chalk it up next to an adventure game that might last 20-40
hours, or FF for 120hours of game play with complex story.