you're just some guy, some free man, if you will, who is trying to impress a hot chick by helping her save her dad, and by doing so you unknowingly become the face of a revolution.

feels less like a game and more like a collection of ideas for what games could be. very minimalist. credits are just white text. diegetic cutscenes. nice physics and graphics, mostly in service of a fairly generic story set in a barren fascist alien nightmare.

yeah it sucks to play as a mute in a game with side characters who are clearly forming bonds and attachments with said character but i kinda feel like that's supposed to be a bit of a joke.

game does feel at odds with itself in terms of being a shooter. i think portal (or at least portal 2, the one i played) feels closer to the kind of game this wants to be, which is basically what it becomes for its final two chapters. saying that, i really dug the shooting and the cold starkness of the level design. you can turn this into a doom-like where you're perpetually hunting down tight corridors with a shotgun blasting everything in sight, even with more unique tools and weapons at your disposal. there are some more open levels, a couple of needlessly long vehicle levels, for example. but i really dug this as a pure corridor shooter.

as an aside, i was surprised how many set pieces were in this game. maybe not a ton but enough to make me go wow this feels like every shooter i've played that has released in 17 years since.

shit feels timeless.