Alkatraz

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

My goal here is to weigh this game up reasonably, so here it is: Pro's - More of the same game style. - Interesting new characters. - Interesting new masks. - Interesting level design, more challenging. Con's - Quite a slow pace. - Level design is interesting but frustrating at times; being shot of screen after an amazing run is simply disappointing and an unfair advantage. - New **** disappointingly bland. - Limited new masks, no where near the same amount of masks and unique traits as the original. - ****...extremely confusing, and outlandish. Not in a good way. Quick snapshot: I felt this game was confused, in many ways, in direction, music, story, and just overall narration of what was going on. I may be missing something but from a game mechanic point of view, I must say there are VERY few masks, and none of which really inspire me as Hotline Miami 1 had. The ending left me a bit sour also. The 6/10 is really because I respect game design, and this is still a good game...compare this to the original however and I would never have played this. The original has amazing music, masks, gameplay mechanics, and excellent pacing. Play that instead of this to be frank, or play it to see what I mean. I hope this review has helped, and I have purposely included ZERO spoilers. -Alkatraz

What's great? - Atmosphere is fantastic. - Realistic Z-Day environments - Headshot's are really the only way to down them. - Creates a real sense of urgency and desperation - Graphics are nice; neither bad nor good, but still of high quality. - Melee is not a wonder weapon. Takes skill and precision. - Gun's behave like realistic weapons. - Large and respectful mapping / modding community. What's bad? - Weird headshot detection; could be due to glancing shots, or the bullet not actually hitting the head but appears to. - Maps can be confusing (which may be the intention) - Controls / aiming CAN be an issue. The controls are easy, just like an FPS but the guns and angles they fire on can sometimes put you off; I put this down to realistic fields of view, and **** always shooting straight like most shooters have you believe. - Melee is not easy to use. When should I play it? LAN's Coop environments Groups of friends Not ideal for solo play. Summary: One of THE best COOP games out there. We play this at LAN's and EVERYONE enjoys it. We often sit back and watch our recorded matches, from different perspectives and all of us lose it laughing. The atmosphere is really the bread winner for this game, and there is no other game out there at the moment that comes close. Support the dev's, and the community. If you have a lot of pals, convince them to grab this and you will have memories of this game to share. A great experience.

This is by FAR the best game I have played ALL year. Screw dishonoured and its psuedo-non-linear path with the lowest duration I've seen in a game in a long time. Farcry 3 takes FPS seriously to an entirely new, unique and superior level. In all honesty this game has believable characters, amazing graphics, jaw-dropping story-line and polished gameplay mechanics. Totally ignore those who crap on about it not having mutants, ignore those that try and wreck the franchise by even comparing it to CoD these people lack significant game experience if that's all they can compare this game to. Farcry 3 breaks all the barriers that keep CoD and Black Ops players in their pen and allows them to use that rinse-repeat formula. When I played this initially I didn't expect much, but 10 minutes in and I was already impressed. The voice acting is astounding, the character expression and casting have been hand picked and when I play the game I never felt bored - you control entirely the direction of the game from beginning to end; there is a preset path but with a nigh infinite series of side quests at your fingertips. Here's what this game isnt; a bloody MMORPG, CoD, Farcry 2, Assassin Creed 3 etc etc ....it is it's own game. What people are complaining about are trivial - non skipable cutscenes...that you only watch **** wow knock of some points, it must be a MMORPG because you gather materials and you "grind quests"; i actually laughed at that one. Im trying not to use foul language here, really im trying. To put it simple here IS what Farcry 3 was to me and to the people that gave it 100% (which it deserves): - Free from FPS that lets you explore and "grind" (lol seriously) as much as you like or not at all. - Beautifully rendered cutscenes that use the in-game engine to push the story ahead. - Phenomenal character design and high production values spent on in-game cinematography and voice acting (i cannot stress how refreshing this is). - A HUGE array of side quests and unlockable weapons. - Gets the player (me) engaged with not only the story, but the wildlife and the island itself; it is tough not to become part of the game and it's characters. - EPIC in length; I've been playing this for 1 - 2 weeks, almost all the time. I have enjoyed every hour to be honest. - Well organised and crafted level up / skill system. Multiplayer is also plenty of fun with unlockable weapons. You start of with some basic loadouts and then like every other multiplayer now, you level up through kills etc. Just so you know its easy, I went from 1 to 37 in 1 day alone; its not that difficult. I will point out though you can get VERY far with only using the first weapon in your loadout - so it felt it was quite balanced. Here's what Farcry 3 does wrong: - Sticky Controls at times. - Feels a little bit like a console when picking up items or interacting with the environment in any way. - I had only 1 glitch in the entire game. - Perhaps running and falling should be better explained to the player. I.e running off a cliff will "amazingly" kill you, whilst walking down or crouching down the side of a cliff keeps your kneecaps intact. Here are the dumbass complaints you should ignore: - Total reliance on woods to heal, and the healing system is dodgy. Bollocks simply put. The healing system serves a purpose otherwise you would never get anyway and constantly be slaughtered. It's your job to keep your injections to heal full and your job to find locations for safety to heal yourself. If the game has them hunting you (like real people do) then holy crap that is what should happen. - Quick time events are everywhere. Garbage. They are present and serve as cutscene mechanics. They flow well and are actually enjoyable to utilize during the scene itself. The only other time you use quicktime events is when you're about to die, or being attacked by an animal - it's giving you a chance - I cant believe someone complained about this - Unlock skills and equipment to quick: Ridiculous. To level up you need to progress thorough the story's parts; otherwise you have levels to spend but they are unavailable; its a mechanic that warrants the player invests time in the story and not just **** around. Salvaging animals to make better gear is great fun but you dont have to do this, so it's really up to you whether or not you want to spend the time or not. Look guys, the list could go on. Let me make this clear..read very carefully the reviews that give it below 5 or 4...read them. I mentioned the graphics once, I discussed predominantly the gameplay. The Direct X11 is amazing, yes, but aspects such as AI, the rpg elements, and sooo much more makes this game worth playing. When someone on here compares this FPS with a decent story for a change to an MMORPG...seriously, read them for a laugh. I sincerely hope this helps you BUY the game and ignore those flamers that wreck a game that for once is borderline a piece of art.