el Chi
Newbie
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
- Messages
- 7,439
- Reaction score
- 2
I bought it yesterday and it's good fun. I've not finished it yet and to be honest it seems fairly standard SC stuff which personally I like a lot.
The idea of balancing trust between NSA and JBA (John Brown Army) is pretty cool although so far I haven't gotten into any situations where it seems like the NSA's trust in you has been seriously challenged. However given Sam's track record and the nature of the mission (infiltration), that's fair enough. I'd imagine/hope things get a bit more difficult to balance later on in the game.
I've yet to see how severe repercussions are for losing trust/failing a certain party's demands on you.
There are some very odd plot holes - one of the JBA leaders talks about "your experience" but surely they can't be referring to his history with NSA? Why he's using his real name I'm not sure; there are a few others - maybe they'll be explained, maybe not.
In fairness, if there's one way to spoil an experience, it's to pick holes in it, so perhaps better to leave that and carry on, blissfully ignorant and accepting...
However, it's one of the most enfuriatingly buggy and inconsistant games I believe I've ever played.
SC bad-guys have always had wildly varying eyesight from not being able to see you if you were waving your nob three inches in front of their face to having such amazing vision it'd be worth gouging out their eyes to use instead of your night-vision goggles. In fairness it hasn't been too dreadful until the bit I'm at now where there's a specific character I HAVE to sneak up on from behind so he doesn't see me. If he DOES see me, game over man. Hiding behind a large engine valve in the bowels of a ship, in the shadows where I'm supposed to be "completely hidden", this guy spots me. This is not challenging: this is simply annoying.
The thermal imaging goggles are ridiculous as well - sometimes they work very well at a distance, other times they won't show up unless I can see them in normal vision, which sort of defeats the point.
They can penetrate the metal walls of a container crate and the doors of ships, but try and look through tarpaulin into a tent? Tarpaulin is, apparently, some sort of magic, hiding things far better than solid steel. Naturally.
Also, there are severely stupid bugs that have seen me unable to get up from crouching, unable to slide under or jump over certain obstacles (some of these may just be stupid design decisions, but some of them definitely are bugs) and sometimes just getting plain stuck (you want to walk up that mild slope you just walked down? Don't be ridiculous!)
However so far there have been some very fun moments - always fun to crack someone over the back of the head whilst they're not looking; drag someone under the ice.
So far - and I'm seriously hoping it'll pick up - I'd give it a score in the high 70s to low 80s.
Make of that what you will.
The idea of balancing trust between NSA and JBA (John Brown Army) is pretty cool although so far I haven't gotten into any situations where it seems like the NSA's trust in you has been seriously challenged. However given Sam's track record and the nature of the mission (infiltration), that's fair enough. I'd imagine/hope things get a bit more difficult to balance later on in the game.
I've yet to see how severe repercussions are for losing trust/failing a certain party's demands on you.
There are some very odd plot holes - one of the JBA leaders talks about "your experience" but surely they can't be referring to his history with NSA? Why he's using his real name I'm not sure; there are a few others - maybe they'll be explained, maybe not.
In fairness, if there's one way to spoil an experience, it's to pick holes in it, so perhaps better to leave that and carry on, blissfully ignorant and accepting...
However, it's one of the most enfuriatingly buggy and inconsistant games I believe I've ever played.
SC bad-guys have always had wildly varying eyesight from not being able to see you if you were waving your nob three inches in front of their face to having such amazing vision it'd be worth gouging out their eyes to use instead of your night-vision goggles. In fairness it hasn't been too dreadful until the bit I'm at now where there's a specific character I HAVE to sneak up on from behind so he doesn't see me. If he DOES see me, game over man. Hiding behind a large engine valve in the bowels of a ship, in the shadows where I'm supposed to be "completely hidden", this guy spots me. This is not challenging: this is simply annoying.
The thermal imaging goggles are ridiculous as well - sometimes they work very well at a distance, other times they won't show up unless I can see them in normal vision, which sort of defeats the point.
They can penetrate the metal walls of a container crate and the doors of ships, but try and look through tarpaulin into a tent? Tarpaulin is, apparently, some sort of magic, hiding things far better than solid steel. Naturally.
Also, there are severely stupid bugs that have seen me unable to get up from crouching, unable to slide under or jump over certain obstacles (some of these may just be stupid design decisions, but some of them definitely are bugs) and sometimes just getting plain stuck (you want to walk up that mild slope you just walked down? Don't be ridiculous!)
However so far there have been some very fun moments - always fun to crack someone over the back of the head whilst they're not looking; drag someone under the ice.
So far - and I'm seriously hoping it'll pick up - I'd give it a score in the high 70s to low 80s.
Make of that what you will.
