Chaos Theory a lot of the time feels like playing a horror game where you're the monster/killer, you take out all the lights around 2 guards, whistle at them to get their attention then circle around and pick one off and see the other one turn around and notice his absence before freaking out, being seconds away from him also being taken out from behind.
It feels amazing to do that kind of shit. though...if I'm being honest the real star of the game are the interrogations, they are amazing, these are some of the funniest guards I've seen in a game. One time a guard told me everything he knew without hesitation then claimed he was the biggest coward ever and told me that he pissed himself which was hilarious. Another time I saw 2 guards talking about a certain ninja that did some stuff in Georgia in 2004, one guard even claiming he was attacked by set ninja. Either way he can now claim he was attacked twice by a ninja as the second I grabbed and interrogated him he started going on about how he knew there were ninjas there and Sam was really confused by the whole thing and when threatening to kill him the guard just said that it'd be cool to be killed by a ninja. One time a guard thought the whole thing was a training exercise and Sam went along and used that as a way to get info lol.
I could go on but you really have to experience this game for yourself as it's such a huge leap forward from the first game that I don't see any reason to go back at this point.
All the annoying things from the first game have all been either fixed or gotten rid off completely and the level design has never been better. Every level is designed to be done in multiple ways, oftentimes exploring rewards you with secret entries that will make your life easier or maybe a side objective, sometimes items or just a guard with important info for you. You can do every mission without killing any guards, I think the same was true of the first one but it was clear that sometimes you kinda had to kill the guards to make your life way easier, here it's only a matter of planning ahead what you'll do as you have a lot more gadgets at your disposal to get past the guards. The game does a good job at making the game get harder as it goes with new enemy types that serve as counters to you with thermal vision, making it way harder to sneak past them but not so hard that they become annoying/unfair, the amount of turrets has been toned the fuck down from the last game where they were useless in all but one area, I think I only saw like 2 in the whole game.
I liked how you can choose to either leave or save 2 pilots from an explosion at one point despite your orders. There isn’t any reward nor do you ever hear from those pilots again but I kinda liked that tbh.
Chaos Theory in every way lives up to the hype and stands the test of the time, unlike with the og there weren’t any moments where I thought yeah this hasn’t aged well or wow this really feels like a 2000s game huh.
It’s just back to back great levels, not every level is perfect and amazing but out of 10 missions, the worst level simply being really good (bathhouse) speaks to the game’s quality. Cargo Ship and the Bank mission were my fav’s in the game as to me they felt the most open with Bank even giving you 2 ways of entering the bank itself, either through the front door or from above, repelling down from the roof.
There's some really tense moments in the game. In one of the missions I had to access a server but the door that would lead into the server was stuck due to a blackout I assume and some people were also stuck just outside of the server room. After lookin around for another way to get in I managed to find a vent that let me enter from above, once I accessed the server, seconds later the power went back on and I only had a few secs to get out so I had to use the rope i used to climb down to get back up as lights were slowly coming back on around me and those people were approaching, it created for a really tense moment where I didn't know whether or not I was gonna make it or if I would have had to restart from last quicksave (last quicksave was like 7 minutes beforehand btw). Obviously that's just an example and one that was obviously scripted to happen but there's plenty of non scripted tense moments, having guards walk past you in the dark as you think about whether you are too close to them or not, interrogating someone and seeing another guard come close to you and overhear, wondering if it'd be worth to knock the guard out now or try and move and look for a better spot to knock him out so you can deal with the other guard without having the body seen, etc etc.
I’m looking forward to trying out the coop at some point with a friend even though the way to get it to work is a bit complicated from what I’ve seen but I’ve also heard nothing but positive things about it so it’ll prb be worth the trouble. This is most definitely a game that I will come back and replay countless times.
It feels amazing to do that kind of shit. though...if I'm being honest the real star of the game are the interrogations, they are amazing, these are some of the funniest guards I've seen in a game. One time a guard told me everything he knew without hesitation then claimed he was the biggest coward ever and told me that he pissed himself which was hilarious. Another time I saw 2 guards talking about a certain ninja that did some stuff in Georgia in 2004, one guard even claiming he was attacked by set ninja. Either way he can now claim he was attacked twice by a ninja as the second I grabbed and interrogated him he started going on about how he knew there were ninjas there and Sam was really confused by the whole thing and when threatening to kill him the guard just said that it'd be cool to be killed by a ninja. One time a guard thought the whole thing was a training exercise and Sam went along and used that as a way to get info lol.
I could go on but you really have to experience this game for yourself as it's such a huge leap forward from the first game that I don't see any reason to go back at this point.
All the annoying things from the first game have all been either fixed or gotten rid off completely and the level design has never been better. Every level is designed to be done in multiple ways, oftentimes exploring rewards you with secret entries that will make your life easier or maybe a side objective, sometimes items or just a guard with important info for you. You can do every mission without killing any guards, I think the same was true of the first one but it was clear that sometimes you kinda had to kill the guards to make your life way easier, here it's only a matter of planning ahead what you'll do as you have a lot more gadgets at your disposal to get past the guards. The game does a good job at making the game get harder as it goes with new enemy types that serve as counters to you with thermal vision, making it way harder to sneak past them but not so hard that they become annoying/unfair, the amount of turrets has been toned the fuck down from the last game where they were useless in all but one area, I think I only saw like 2 in the whole game.
I liked how you can choose to either leave or save 2 pilots from an explosion at one point despite your orders. There isn’t any reward nor do you ever hear from those pilots again but I kinda liked that tbh.
Chaos Theory in every way lives up to the hype and stands the test of the time, unlike with the og there weren’t any moments where I thought yeah this hasn’t aged well or wow this really feels like a 2000s game huh.
It’s just back to back great levels, not every level is perfect and amazing but out of 10 missions, the worst level simply being really good (bathhouse) speaks to the game’s quality. Cargo Ship and the Bank mission were my fav’s in the game as to me they felt the most open with Bank even giving you 2 ways of entering the bank itself, either through the front door or from above, repelling down from the roof.
There's some really tense moments in the game. In one of the missions I had to access a server but the door that would lead into the server was stuck due to a blackout I assume and some people were also stuck just outside of the server room. After lookin around for another way to get in I managed to find a vent that let me enter from above, once I accessed the server, seconds later the power went back on and I only had a few secs to get out so I had to use the rope i used to climb down to get back up as lights were slowly coming back on around me and those people were approaching, it created for a really tense moment where I didn't know whether or not I was gonna make it or if I would have had to restart from last quicksave (last quicksave was like 7 minutes beforehand btw). Obviously that's just an example and one that was obviously scripted to happen but there's plenty of non scripted tense moments, having guards walk past you in the dark as you think about whether you are too close to them or not, interrogating someone and seeing another guard come close to you and overhear, wondering if it'd be worth to knock the guard out now or try and move and look for a better spot to knock him out so you can deal with the other guard without having the body seen, etc etc.
I’m looking forward to trying out the coop at some point with a friend even though the way to get it to work is a bit complicated from what I’ve seen but I’ve also heard nothing but positive things about it so it’ll prb be worth the trouble. This is most definitely a game that I will come back and replay countless times.