I'm not going to mindlessly praise
this game, so please don't skip over because of the high rating I gave
it. I'm not some mindless fanboy here to tell you this is the greatest
game ever, it isn't. This will be an honest consideration of the game
as a whole.
First, the game has a good story. They went to some trouble to make it
interesting and keep up the surprises. There is good transition and you
meet the right mix of characters for a given situation. There isn't
really a moment where you find yourself saying "How did these guy's
just show up here?" There was only one or two missions I asked myself
"Why am I doing this, it makes no sense."
You get some good helper AI's which seem to use weapons and pick up new
ones like you would rather than just using their starting weapons or
using the same one forever. It's pretty realistic.
The friendly AI has to be one of my biggest praises for this game. In
general, they are actually useful in battles! This is a far cry from
many games where your "helpers" just get in the way or shoot you in the
back. As a nice touch, these AI even apologize in the rare instance
they hit a friendly unit (like yourself) by mistake. They are even
effective when they hop onboard a vehicle with you. A disappointment is
you can't give AI units commands; it'd be nice to have more choice of
who to replace with whom when one of the guys gets injured and a
healthy one is available. Another thing I found astonishing is this is
probably the first game I've played where you go to where a battle
supposedly took place and there are weapons, bodies, etc. laying around
like there was actually a battle. You get more of a fell that a
conflict occurred there rather than just a random body here and there.
The enemy AI is realistic too. The little guys will hang around the
bigger ones for support and tend to get startled and run screaming if
caught alone. On the other hand, the Covenant sometimes has a habit of
just sitting in their area and waiting for you chasing you down would
be more realistic behaviour, but maybe they figured it'd make it too
hard on the player.
I don't want to spoil anything, but if you like games where you can see
two groups fighting and use the distraction to tip the tide and then
waste the winner this is the game for you. You get a few chances to do
that. Reminds me of the Max Payne II mob wars.
To sum it up, the characters act realistically for the most part, there
is pretty good voice acting, the graphics look sufficient and run fine,
the friendly AI is helpful and not annoying like most games, the levels
are sometimes repetitive but the outside ones are varied and
imaginative, there aren't any really cheesy bits, and the vehicles
rock. All this adds up to an enjoyable experience that is worth the very cheap price tag on it.
