Posted September 08, 2009
I can explain why this game didn't sell well: the title.
Everything in the actual game itself is pretty much perfect. It's got varied, unusual gameplay, with real challenges: every success feels fantastic. And it's got real thought: the immersion is wonderful and the storyline, though a bit cartoony, has deep emotional content and works as a fine parable about why it's not cool to be a fascist or a bloodsucking alien. A lot of the wonder of playing this game comes from the fact that there are about ten million ways to play it, really: you can go completist, you can race your heart out on the racetracks, stealth every level, fight your way through everything-- anything you want, basically. The levels are marvellously explorable. There's an intense sensation of your being in a well-put-together world: something structured, yet open. The gameworld here feels much more complete and thought-out than most modern games' settings.
So: it has heart, it has setting, it has story, it has kickass mechanics and gameplay-- what's not to love?
The fact that this game, when it was marketed nine years ago, would have struck parents as some kind of crazy kid-poisoning nonsense, and would have struck older games as a kind of joke. Cartoony, bloodless, stealth-based, practically noncombative? You can forget the older demographics right there. Meanwhile, reading the back of the box, this thing sounds like some kind of insane conspiracy-theory political thriller designed by radical Nietzsche fans. Not something you want to hand to your ten-year-old. 'Beyond Good and Evil?" What the hell was going through their heads? Calling up random references to Nietzsche titles that are actually quite irrelevant to the plot is a plan that's never going to more more units off the shelves. This is just a straight-up pure action-adventure title with some political parable in for good measure.
And that's all it is-- and that's all it needs to be. It is what it is perfectly. It's got great music. It has perfect gameplay-- three different kinds of it, to tell the truth: steal platforming, photo-shooting, and boat-racing. It has solid characters and a really effective plot. They mucked it all up trying to make it into more than it really is. Playing to this game's strengths-- and there are plenty of them-- would have been much better.
Anyway, there's nothing not to like about this game, and it plays fine on the PC, aside from major graphical glitches that can be easily rectified if you check the support articles. Buy it. The more this title sells, the more likely Ubisoft are to resurrect their shelved sequel plan. And it deserves one, badly. It's one hell of a game.
Everything in the actual game itself is pretty much perfect. It's got varied, unusual gameplay, with real challenges: every success feels fantastic. And it's got real thought: the immersion is wonderful and the storyline, though a bit cartoony, has deep emotional content and works as a fine parable about why it's not cool to be a fascist or a bloodsucking alien. A lot of the wonder of playing this game comes from the fact that there are about ten million ways to play it, really: you can go completist, you can race your heart out on the racetracks, stealth every level, fight your way through everything-- anything you want, basically. The levels are marvellously explorable. There's an intense sensation of your being in a well-put-together world: something structured, yet open. The gameworld here feels much more complete and thought-out than most modern games' settings.
So: it has heart, it has setting, it has story, it has kickass mechanics and gameplay-- what's not to love?
The fact that this game, when it was marketed nine years ago, would have struck parents as some kind of crazy kid-poisoning nonsense, and would have struck older games as a kind of joke. Cartoony, bloodless, stealth-based, practically noncombative? You can forget the older demographics right there. Meanwhile, reading the back of the box, this thing sounds like some kind of insane conspiracy-theory political thriller designed by radical Nietzsche fans. Not something you want to hand to your ten-year-old. 'Beyond Good and Evil?" What the hell was going through their heads? Calling up random references to Nietzsche titles that are actually quite irrelevant to the plot is a plan that's never going to more more units off the shelves. This is just a straight-up pure action-adventure title with some political parable in for good measure.
And that's all it is-- and that's all it needs to be. It is what it is perfectly. It's got great music. It has perfect gameplay-- three different kinds of it, to tell the truth: steal platforming, photo-shooting, and boat-racing. It has solid characters and a really effective plot. They mucked it all up trying to make it into more than it really is. Playing to this game's strengths-- and there are plenty of them-- would have been much better.
Anyway, there's nothing not to like about this game, and it plays fine on the PC, aside from major graphical glitches that can be easily rectified if you check the support articles. Buy it. The more this title sells, the more likely Ubisoft are to resurrect their shelved sequel plan. And it deserves one, badly. It's one hell of a game.