It's not the most sophisticated shooter, it doesn't have a revolutionary story setting, and neither is there mind-blowing level design, but its individual parts are woven in such a way that makes it fun to play, even if there are a few design choices I wasn't a fan of.
The story and the consequences of your actions naturally unveil themselves as you progress. No cutscenes or extensive dialogue is needed. This also leads to the game never taking control from the player, so there is always that satisfaction of feeling like you've done something, rather than the game making you watch a cutscene of the character doing something. This game is often praised for its environmental storytelling for a very good reason.
The atmosphere and sound design are really well done as well. It's a little difficult to put into words, but the game's setting gives off some survival horror vibes, combined with a feeling of isolation and desperation.
The gunplay felt pretty nice and you have a good variety of weapons. Nothing really to complain about there.
The level design felt kind of hit or miss, at least for me.
Your default speed is pretty fast and you'll have plenty of instances where you'll have to platform, sometimes on areas that aren't easy to land on. This becomes a lot more frustrating in the last few levels.
Puzzles were very easy and I almost have no idea why they were even in the game.
There were a couple of bugs that detracted from the experience, though some of them are admittedly nitpicks.
Whenever I needed to escort an NPC, I sometimes had to talk to it around 5-6 times so that it could begin following me. And it sometimes also just stopped following me until I didn't talk to it again.
There were 2 cases when killing an enemy resulted in that enemy continuing to walk around.
Worst of all was a bug in chapter 16. The boss, no matter how much I reset (did it around 30 times) didn't initiate its 3rd phase properly, although I learned it isn't necessary to kill it to finish the level, so that was a small relief. I wasted a lot of weapons to open that hole in the ground though.
Overall, a revolutionary shooter for its time and still a solid game today.
Certain areas feel a little clunky and the bugs can be annoying at times, but it has good gunplay and really good environmental storytelling, atmosphere, and sound design.
It will kick your ass in areas but felt satisfying to beat, even with its flaws.
The story and the consequences of your actions naturally unveil themselves as you progress. No cutscenes or extensive dialogue is needed. This also leads to the game never taking control from the player, so there is always that satisfaction of feeling like you've done something, rather than the game making you watch a cutscene of the character doing something. This game is often praised for its environmental storytelling for a very good reason.
The atmosphere and sound design are really well done as well. It's a little difficult to put into words, but the game's setting gives off some survival horror vibes, combined with a feeling of isolation and desperation.
The gunplay felt pretty nice and you have a good variety of weapons. Nothing really to complain about there.
The level design felt kind of hit or miss, at least for me.
Your default speed is pretty fast and you'll have plenty of instances where you'll have to platform, sometimes on areas that aren't easy to land on. This becomes a lot more frustrating in the last few levels.
Puzzles were very easy and I almost have no idea why they were even in the game.
There were a couple of bugs that detracted from the experience, though some of them are admittedly nitpicks.
Whenever I needed to escort an NPC, I sometimes had to talk to it around 5-6 times so that it could begin following me. And it sometimes also just stopped following me until I didn't talk to it again.
There were 2 cases when killing an enemy resulted in that enemy continuing to walk around.
Worst of all was a bug in chapter 16. The boss, no matter how much I reset (did it around 30 times) didn't initiate its 3rd phase properly, although I learned it isn't necessary to kill it to finish the level, so that was a small relief. I wasted a lot of weapons to open that hole in the ground though.
Overall, a revolutionary shooter for its time and still a solid game today.
Certain areas feel a little clunky and the bugs can be annoying at times, but it has good gunplay and really good environmental storytelling, atmosphere, and sound design.
It will kick your ass in areas but felt satisfying to beat, even with its flaws.