It's a very nice port--aside from PhysX I can max all settings on my humble 2008 rig--but for some reason it uses console-style edge-blurring nonsense that looks even worse than no antialiasing at all (I'll have to try forcing real AA later). The Xbox 360 controller works perfectly, complete with both rumble and prompts, although for some reason the face buttons are labelled "B1", "B2" etc. rather than their proper names (although the colours still match) and you can't remap the configurations at all. Unlike Alpha Protocol you can use both the controller and keyboard and mouse at the same time, however, and it will simply change the prompts dynamically to match whichever one you pushed last. Cutscenes can be paused at any time (bringing up a menu asking if you want to skip it), which is a very welcome touch that too few games have.
The demo gives you a taste of the collectibles (nude Playboy pin-ups), although it doesn't seem like there is any way to view them after initial collection (presumably a demo limitation--or maybe they go on Vito's wall and I missed it) and they don't respawn even if you reload a checkpoint or quit the game and come back. The city portion of the demo has a time limit of 10 minutes (and even that is within a walled-off segment). One really odd thing is that you can choose to kick in any door as well as just opening it but the NPCs don't seem to even care when you do this. You also can't harm friendly NPCs during missions (the gun simply won't fire, similar to Crysis).
The gunplay is standard cover-shooting fare but seems solid enough (although it doesn't seem like you can simply walk out of cover as in some games) and the health regen isn't too generous. As in the first game you can be wounded by car accidents (I managed to die in a head-on collision at one point).
One thing I don't particularly like is the hand-to-hand combat system, which locks you into a weird camera mode with the other person; I couldn't find any way to break it other than to simply back away far enough, so this could make unwanted confrontations more annoying than they should be.
The atmosphere is top-notch, with my only real complaint being the lack of radio stations (there are only three). All in all though it's as you'd expect, and you can even consume cola and other goodies from Vito's fridge (the items actually deplete, which makes me wonder how you restock them). You can also buy clothes and car upgrades and so forth with the new money system; in the first game your pockets were bottomless, so this new system means bribing the cops actually has a downside.
Post edited August 10, 2010 by Arkose
