In this post is the sum total of my shacknews review (-explatives
). Shacknews makes it easy to have multiple threaded posts, so this post, which i copied and pasted, will be slightly disjointed.
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It's pretty awesome, the new moves are very welcome and the smarter AI is too... That said, I have a list of grievances:
- No Shader v2.0 support. This is lame, 1.1 & 3.0 support are there, clearly pandering to nVidia.
- Can't equip pistol while wall-hugging.
- Can't equip pistol while on ladder.
- Can't equip pistol while hanging from ledge.
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All of the pistol equip things I think were in the old game and I miss them (edit: turns out they weren't except the wallhug peaking around corner equip, #2)
Here's a list of awesome new stuff:
- Instant knife kills from all directions
- Holding knife-kill or suffocate button (while grabbing character) results in Sam automatically picking up the body after the dirty work is done.
- You can interrogate like 3/4 of the people you grab. Very impressive; you could only interrogate a grand total of perhaps 3 in the last few games. I was really impressed by this part. In the previous two games, you could only interrogate a few characters who were integral to the mission. In fact, because I used primarily knife kills, gun kills, or strict avoidance my first few times through the demo, I did not even notice this great new aspect.
Some of the conversations you have with the people you grab are utterly hilarious as well, but more importantly, they add depth to the game. Some will divulge information about the plot, or what is going on, or what your next objective will probably be, or just offer incite into their "lives". It's a great touch and definitely very welcome and cool. It also offers incentive to actually manage to capture and grab most opponents instead of simply taking them out lethally without being as sneaky. - There are at least two ways to get to any given area, sometimes 3. Those of you disappointed with the linearity of the last few games may only be somewhat happier. Although there are usually 2-3 ways to the next area, there is definitely a linear series of areas. You can't really change which order you go to the areas very much, only how you get to them (and sometimes whether you go to them at all).
- Pistol secondary fire, momentary light knock-out. In this game the pistol has a secondary fire. If you use your new "electromagnetic goggles" or whatever, you can see devices which can be disabled by the secondary fire. Basically, if you take aim at an electromagnetic device with the pistol and secondary fire, it will flicker and then turn off for about 20 seconds before flickering and turning back on. This is useful because it is silent and temporary; no one will investigate it after it has turned back on. That said, it has a delay to it and is just as hard to hit stuff with as primary fire, so if you miss, you have to wait like 10 seconds to try again. This makes it very hard to use and also somewhat discouraging to try, especially when many lights are moving.
- NECK BREAK!! While hanging upside down, if someone walks under you, you can suffocate them or pull off the most awesome move ever, the instant neck break.
- Pulling people over railings from above. This is so much fun but there are only two opportunities in the demo.
- Ability to select load out. This is awesome, you can finally decide to be an all out NAVY SEAL commando, or a genuine Splinter Cell stealth badass.
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Another slight disappointment: You cannot knife kill while holding onto a character from behind. This is disappointing because the lethal blow you *can* strike is very loud, and it's pretty illogical that sam would opt to kick them in the back to kill them instead of just using the knife he already has out and killing silently. I can only imagine that a knife kill while holding them was somewhat too graphic or something, or that they really wanted to introduce a disadvantage for killing people rather than knocking them out. Either way, it's pretty lame considering Sam is already holding the knife to the character's neck when you grab them.
Another disappointment: Sam's face looks like crap. Honestly, it's just pathetic. All of the faces look like crap. This is something they really need to work on if still possible. The old games had better faces, so I'm not sure if it's a modelling issue or just the crappy low res shaders.
Another Slight Disappointment (+rant): LOW RES SHADERS. Maybe this is only in the v1.1 shader path, but if you take a close look at many of the glows (especially the green glows on Sam's gear and on the cave walls) you can distinctly see individual "shexels" (which is the word I'm coining for shader pixels... it's as if you're seeing a very low res texture where you can see the individual texels and subsequent blending between them). This crappy shader glow was also in Pandora Tomorrow, but I don't think it was in the original. I really have no way to explain it other than maybe it being a remnant from the Xbox port (it's impossible to notice the low res glow on a low res screen). I would love to see the game in action on v3.0 shaders just to see if this glow is fixed. (Edit: I have now personally confirmed that v3.0 shader path does not suffer from this)
ATTN GAME DEVS: *always* offer an option for pixel perfect shaders. I CAN'T STAND LOW RES SHADERS!! What's the point in playing in a high resolution when all of the shaders are low res! Some games do this with water and everything under the water has cool distortion, but is also really blocky and crappy looking.
The only thing I didn't like was the faces. They looked pretty messed up. HUGE eyeballs and weird mouths from some angles. Other than that, I can't wait for this game. The multiplayer looks incredible as well. GAH! I need to go play that demo again!