Started playing this last night. Very mixed start tbh. Big Splinter Cell fan from #1. But the series has been steadily getting less playable with each new game.
Very awkward playing the first level - they throw too many mechanics at you in such a short space of time and each one isn't explained properly. It all happens too quickly to take it all in and it's not a fun first level - more stressful as you constantly think you've missed an important piece of information.
The combat is a little too clumsy for my liking. You can't really judge enemy movements very well as their are lots of corners and open doors with AI walking around quite freely - so 90% of the time, you end up being seen and just having a shoot out with them. This would be ok, but shooting doesn't feel great.
The cover system is lacking something (isn't quite solid enough) and the whole thing just falls short for me.
That's a very quick reaction to the first hour - I'll keep going for now to se if it gets better.
Played a bit more last night.
ReplyDeleteStarting to get used to the cover system - didn't realise you have to hold down the LT button to stay in cover. But the peeking & firing from cover is just not quite right IMO. Doesn't feel smooth enough when you look out and try and aim and it's not done as well as many other games that use the cover system (including the how many years old Gears of War)?
They do this strange thing with objectives where they shine the text onto parts of world geometry, so you might see 'Plant the c4' in big white text on a wall, or on the side of a truck etc. Visually, it looks quite cool actually, but gives a real strange feel to the mood - feels a little bit comic book and doesn't help with immersion.
Biggest gripe so far though is the fact that enemies don't reset after they see you. So you have a single chance at staying stealthy. If you're spotted - that's it, they'll be on high alert and will be looking for you from that point.
I know it's not realistic and some people don't like it, but it's just too harsh for me. To offer a single chance at using stealth ramps the difficulty level way high and I just think you should reset them after a given amount of time. Works fine in MGS and it's quite easy to find a contextual way of resetting their alert status.
The reason this affects game play so much is that it means that the ratio of stealth to shooting tips too far into shooting. Least for me anyway.