Needed something kind of easy to play and had a dim memory of this being pretty good: exactly the sort of big, dumb action game to help me recenter myself.
The aspect that really took me off guard starting it up again was the really strict ammo economy- In order to encourage you to play more stylishly, most of the ammo and all the weapon upgrades are bought rather than found- with the secondary fire modes in particular ending up feeling like honest-to-god investments, costing anything from a few hundred to few thousand points, and are used so sparingly that you have to ready them before firing them, so you don’t end up accidentally firing the last arena’s worth of currency into the air. Definitely makes a big difference in the pace of fights, trying to maximize the value in an arsenal where you’re very conscious of each inefficient kill and wasted shot.
Runs into a problem where it rewards collateral over finesse, so a weapon like the sniper rifle ends up being left in the lurch, whereas the late-game drill practically pays for itself- despite the fact that getting use out of the former is far more difficult than the latter. Add to this a lack of score decay and an extremely limited weapon capacity (you can only carry two weapons alongside the standard rifle) and it’s very easy to fall into the same few cost-effective strategies, tossing goons into the same spike wall again and again and again, instead getting more experimental with the options available to you.
Matters less as the game goes on though- not because the design of the encounters changes or anything- but because the game goes out of its way to provide extra currency for the player, with some of 7th gen staples like overzealous QTE’s and overlong turret sections being made slightly more palatable by the fact that they provide so many points for the player. Definitely feels patronizing to get more of a reward for hitting the “look” button at the right time than for some combat encounters, but I can appreciate it as a way to make sure you’re never completely out of options, and in how it frees you up to mess around in the later encounters, finally walking around with enough extra cash to get wild with your arsenal.
For all its issues, that push and pull of the shop, of gambling the last of your points on a few charge shots to try and get a decent return on investment is a unique tension- the one part of the game that's really endured when so many other titles have outpaced it in their grindhouse tone, speed, and agency.
A couple of stray thoughts on the story/setting: Think the backdrop of vacation resort turned apocalyptic hell-world is pretty great, and compliments the action really well- I imagine that for anyone playing this now, the sense of complete corporate apathy to disaster is going to feel a lot sharper now than it did at release. I’d also say that the treatment of your partner, Ishi, is far worse than I remember- he gets a lot of pointedly racist shit thrown his way, but is the one character who doesn’t get the satisfaction of a great comeback; feels like he’s at the brunt of a much crueler joke than the rest of the cast. (Trishka isn’t treated much better)
I don’t know, add to this list of “interesting but flawed” action games I seem forever drawn to.
The aspect that really took me off guard starting it up again was the really strict ammo economy- In order to encourage you to play more stylishly, most of the ammo and all the weapon upgrades are bought rather than found- with the secondary fire modes in particular ending up feeling like honest-to-god investments, costing anything from a few hundred to few thousand points, and are used so sparingly that you have to ready them before firing them, so you don’t end up accidentally firing the last arena’s worth of currency into the air. Definitely makes a big difference in the pace of fights, trying to maximize the value in an arsenal where you’re very conscious of each inefficient kill and wasted shot.
Runs into a problem where it rewards collateral over finesse, so a weapon like the sniper rifle ends up being left in the lurch, whereas the late-game drill practically pays for itself- despite the fact that getting use out of the former is far more difficult than the latter. Add to this a lack of score decay and an extremely limited weapon capacity (you can only carry two weapons alongside the standard rifle) and it’s very easy to fall into the same few cost-effective strategies, tossing goons into the same spike wall again and again and again, instead getting more experimental with the options available to you.
Matters less as the game goes on though- not because the design of the encounters changes or anything- but because the game goes out of its way to provide extra currency for the player, with some of 7th gen staples like overzealous QTE’s and overlong turret sections being made slightly more palatable by the fact that they provide so many points for the player. Definitely feels patronizing to get more of a reward for hitting the “look” button at the right time than for some combat encounters, but I can appreciate it as a way to make sure you’re never completely out of options, and in how it frees you up to mess around in the later encounters, finally walking around with enough extra cash to get wild with your arsenal.
For all its issues, that push and pull of the shop, of gambling the last of your points on a few charge shots to try and get a decent return on investment is a unique tension- the one part of the game that's really endured when so many other titles have outpaced it in their grindhouse tone, speed, and agency.
A couple of stray thoughts on the story/setting: Think the backdrop of vacation resort turned apocalyptic hell-world is pretty great, and compliments the action really well- I imagine that for anyone playing this now, the sense of complete corporate apathy to disaster is going to feel a lot sharper now than it did at release. I’d also say that the treatment of your partner, Ishi, is far worse than I remember- he gets a lot of pointedly racist shit thrown his way, but is the one character who doesn’t get the satisfaction of a great comeback; feels like he’s at the brunt of a much crueler joke than the rest of the cast. (Trishka isn’t treated much better)
I don’t know, add to this list of “interesting but flawed” action games I seem forever drawn to.