Game » consists of 17 releases. Released Aug 23, 2011
Finished it. I had given up 2 times before, but I finally made trough it. Previous times it was the controls that kept me enjoying this game, but as I started to play it again a week a go or so. I had forgotten that you can lean in to things, and because of that game felt better (strange, I know). Since my thoughts on the game are somewhat scattered, I will divide my opinions into categories.
Gameplay:
Controls were ok. Biggest problem was that most actions that you can perform, were tied to to your upgrades and your battery. The fact that battery does not reload past the first block without some additional aid, was really annoying. It meant that in some cases, I had to just stare at the walls and wait it to recharge. Items that recharge the battery past one bar were suspiciously rare in a world were there is either shop or vending machine behind every other corner. Situations where you needed your upgrades, were kind of unnatural, leaving me to save my upgrade points until I met a circumstances where I needed some special thing in order to proceed bit more easily.
Inventory management was annoyingly big part of my play trough. I tried no kills/ no detection route, so ended up carrying non-lethal riffle, pistol and a shotgun. Since the first boss soaked in some many hits, for rest of the game two heavy weapons were added to the carry load. About the aforementioned battery, apparently only item that reloads few more bars is the same size as a assault shotgun and Adam Jensen can't eat anything that isn't in his pocket. While we are complaining, what kind of shop carries only 2 protein bars?
Speaking of not killing anyone - I had to come into terms that this was not going to happen. About middle trough the game, I was backtracking and rechecked few baddies that I had stunned a good while ago with double take down. Surprisingly one of the was dead. Luckily I decided "so be it" since later stumbled on few instances where stunned guys died very easily due to exploding barrels/robots and such. Still, I decided to kill as few people as possible. No detections was more manageable, if I would used only take downs, but I didn't want to wait for the battery to recharge, so I had to use the stun gun. That weapon was bit random about whether it triggered detection or not. Other weapons behaved strangely too, like gas grenade would trigger full alert even if it stunned everybody in the room.
Characters:
Best part of the game was the characters. I really liked almost all the personalities in the game. Shame how the main bad guy is so cliched that you can spot him the second he appears.
World:
One of the big misses in this game. The world just never felt real. Movement in the cities was too constricted and the indoor levels were too identical. People and things looked too similar regardless of the place. Really, no one has a different log on splash screen in the future? Fact that every one you meet is always discussing something that relates directly what you are doing or to the plot points does not help the illusion one bit.
Story:
Starts promising, feels good in the middle and falls flat in the end. After certain point, I could call every plot point that was to follow and was not surprised once. If it wasn't for the fact that pulling of stealthy take downs was very satisfying, I would not had the strength to continue. There is lot of stuff to go trough story-wise if you want go peoples emails, however most of it is bland. Most I enjoyed the story heavier side-mission and wished that there were more of those, instead of long corridors of the latter part of the game.
The whole deal:
Kind of disappointment. I can see the potential, but the mix is just not right. I never felt like I could approach the situation any way you like and I never felt that I could influence the story. The whole game just felt bit too mechanical and cold - not enough heart (oh, the irony).
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