Posted October 21, 2009
I really want to mark this higher. It's very creative in places, and when it comes together it's a four star game. But every time you start enjoying it, another terrible design decision or flaw rears it's head and stops you in your tracks.
I remember wanting to get this when it came out. The idea was original at the time, as still pretty original now. The game attempts to mix shooting, platforming, puzzles and other elements together, but each element is pretty flawed.
I definitely enjoyed the game more later on, when the levels involved more platforming and seemed to be better laid-out and more interesting. Many of the earlier levels are mostly straight up shooting, in similar corridors with confusing layouts.
I get the sense that this game had NO playtesting. Combat is too random, and you mostly die due to the controls. Making Bob so fragile was a really infuriating decision, leading to many cheap deaths. Platforming was actually reasonably fun, as some of the levels were huge and original, and reminded me a little of Jedi Knight. But again it's let down by poor controls, and for some reason they seem to have made every platform have a sloping edge... so you keep sliding off.
The other thing that might really have helped would have been cleared objectives, and some kind of map. Maybe that'd make things too easy.. but there were several sections where i had no idea where to go. It often turned out i'd done everything, but i just hadn't noticed some minor change in one of the many corridors... so i ran around the entire level 3 times with nothing to do.
When it all comes together, some good platforming, followed by leaping from person to person to complete objectives, then leaping into a rat and running through a vent, and then leaping into a behemoth and stamping on everyone, before remote controlling a turret and blowing stuff up... it's great. But those moments are few and far between.
Mostly i spent my time reloading, swearing, and wishing it would be over so i could uninstall it.
(it's pretty buggy and flaky too, at least on my system).
I remember wanting to get this when it came out. The idea was original at the time, as still pretty original now. The game attempts to mix shooting, platforming, puzzles and other elements together, but each element is pretty flawed.
I definitely enjoyed the game more later on, when the levels involved more platforming and seemed to be better laid-out and more interesting. Many of the earlier levels are mostly straight up shooting, in similar corridors with confusing layouts.
I get the sense that this game had NO playtesting. Combat is too random, and you mostly die due to the controls. Making Bob so fragile was a really infuriating decision, leading to many cheap deaths. Platforming was actually reasonably fun, as some of the levels were huge and original, and reminded me a little of Jedi Knight. But again it's let down by poor controls, and for some reason they seem to have made every platform have a sloping edge... so you keep sliding off.
The other thing that might really have helped would have been cleared objectives, and some kind of map. Maybe that'd make things too easy.. but there were several sections where i had no idea where to go. It often turned out i'd done everything, but i just hadn't noticed some minor change in one of the many corridors... so i ran around the entire level 3 times with nothing to do.
When it all comes together, some good platforming, followed by leaping from person to person to complete objectives, then leaping into a rat and running through a vent, and then leaping into a behemoth and stamping on everyone, before remote controlling a turret and blowing stuff up... it's great. But those moments are few and far between.
Mostly i spent my time reloading, swearing, and wishing it would be over so i could uninstall it.
(it's pretty buggy and flaky too, at least on my system).