At Best a Poor Man’s Half-Life
I didn’t enjoy most of the game, it was frustrating as hell, but I appreciate having played it. At best its a poor man’s Half-Life. That's a huge compliment coming from me, I’ve never played anything like Half-Life from any other developer.
The fate of the developer (closed after this, their first xbox game) also illustrates the perils of creating a Half-Life like game without having the resources or experience of Valve Software. In HL, players just barely survive every puzzle, chase, or combat section. This game presents players with either complete failure or unscathed success. Finding the correct path requires luck and lots of trail and error. Now I understand how Valve’s endless playtesting allows them to explore the tension between those extremes.
Its really a shame, because if this developer had hung on for a couple more games it could have refined its development process and eventually produced fun horror/fantasy FPS action adventures.
