Oof, this is much worse than I remembered.
First of all, to say that the humor has aged poorly would be underselling it. One half mega-cringe epic bacon FTW zombie apocalypse fuckwaffle reddit stuff, and the other half the whitest-nerd-imaginable take on 'gangsta' culture of the early 2010s. Close to unbearable now.
Aside from that, everything surrounding the whole world design and story feels slipshod. Production must have been rushed, or like, completely started from scratch at some point for it to feel this off. Pointless areas, plotlines that are introduced and dropped, no narrative cohesion whatsoever, doesn't build to anything meaningful, abrupt, stupid ending. It's rough. There are couple good bits and/or cutscenes dotted throughout, but they're like nice little islands in a sea of baffling choices.
Surprisingly (to me at least) the standout stuff is all gameplay related. Driving and shooting got tuned to a very satisfying and easy/arcadey level. Character growth/weapon upgrading is actually really meaningful and satisfying, which makes for impactful decision-making about where to invest your money and how to get more of it. It's fun - you start out pretty underpowered, getting punked by normal mooks, but by the end of the game, if you made certain choices and did a bunch of side activities, you can be, like, impervious to bullets and have infinite ammo guns, lol. I appreciate that they just said fuck it and let the game be broken. That's okay sometimes! It's fun!
Also the character creator was, at least for the time, shockingly good, and it still holds up, especially with this remaster. Probably one of the only ones where you can actually make something resembling an attractive human (and then dress them up like Vegeta). Unfortunately, the main character voices that aren't terrible affected accents are by Troy Baker and whoever that female version of Troy Baker is who shares all of his worst traits, and good God I don't want to hear either of them any more.
Anyway, yeah, I'm surprised this remaster got such a glowing reception. This is nowhere near a 2020-ready game.
First of all, to say that the humor has aged poorly would be underselling it. One half mega-cringe epic bacon FTW zombie apocalypse fuckwaffle reddit stuff, and the other half the whitest-nerd-imaginable take on 'gangsta' culture of the early 2010s. Close to unbearable now.
Aside from that, everything surrounding the whole world design and story feels slipshod. Production must have been rushed, or like, completely started from scratch at some point for it to feel this off. Pointless areas, plotlines that are introduced and dropped, no narrative cohesion whatsoever, doesn't build to anything meaningful, abrupt, stupid ending. It's rough. There are couple good bits and/or cutscenes dotted throughout, but they're like nice little islands in a sea of baffling choices.
Surprisingly (to me at least) the standout stuff is all gameplay related. Driving and shooting got tuned to a very satisfying and easy/arcadey level. Character growth/weapon upgrading is actually really meaningful and satisfying, which makes for impactful decision-making about where to invest your money and how to get more of it. It's fun - you start out pretty underpowered, getting punked by normal mooks, but by the end of the game, if you made certain choices and did a bunch of side activities, you can be, like, impervious to bullets and have infinite ammo guns, lol. I appreciate that they just said fuck it and let the game be broken. That's okay sometimes! It's fun!
Also the character creator was, at least for the time, shockingly good, and it still holds up, especially with this remaster. Probably one of the only ones where you can actually make something resembling an attractive human (and then dress them up like Vegeta). Unfortunately, the main character voices that aren't terrible affected accents are by Troy Baker and whoever that female version of Troy Baker is who shares all of his worst traits, and good God I don't want to hear either of them any more.
Anyway, yeah, I'm surprised this remaster got such a glowing reception. This is nowhere near a 2020-ready game.