Arkl1te

The sequel that knits several events from previous games. Masterpiece of storytelling. Models and animation aged pretty well for a 2001 game. What makes me subtract from 10? -Combat doesn't feel gratifying and lacks some variety that could've been used with the Reaver forging. -The saving points may be too far apart from each other. -The wraith blade is a triangle. Change my mind.

Really good storyline and decision making. Action feels amazing. Stealth too. Decent customization. Radio variety is cool. Vehicle variety is nice. The game has several nice views. Riding vehicles feels good in both first and third person. What makes me subtract from 10? -I can't get in-between all the floors of the first megabuilding where V lives, which is gigantic, and you can see people standing in those floors too. -All enemies scale with your progress. -Trauma Team is just a plot device, they don't appear in random encounters, you can't interact with them in any way, nothing. -You really have to try hard to get all pursuit stars, only to hide yourself for a bit and lose them all at the same time.

All weapons are useful (save for the flechettes). Shelly Harrison's voice acting is nice! Chapter 1 is amazing, its maps were made with lots of love, very life-like, nicely decorated and full of references and crazy secret spots! What makes me subtract from 10? -Every single map outside Chapter 1 is disorienting and subpar. -The repetitive dialogue lines between Dr. Heskell and Shelly get increasingly tiring across the chapters. -Weapons' sound design feel weak. -Enemy variety doesn't change much and there are so many chapters! -Not gonna lie, I overrated this game with a 9.5 at the time.

Weapons are unique and feel good to use. Some enemies are satisfying to take down. Environmental art can be mesmerizing at times. Music evolves and is amazing. Andrew Hulshult fan right here! :D What makes me subtract from 10? -After playing for a while it becomes a chore. -Bosses are too simple and easy to defeat, even in Evil difficulty. -There's reading material and the font choice doesn't favor fast reading. -You can get lost in some levels, not knowing where to continue further in the levels.

Weapon variety is nice and unique. Sound quality is nice. So many pilots, ships and computer voices to choose! Music is really good! Six-degrees of freedom shooting! What makes me subtract from 10: -Hard to know where to go in later levels. This kills off a lot of the fun. -Environmental art is bleak, some ambient sounds are really annoying I had to edit some of the wav's volumes with Audacity.

Even if it's multiplayer-influenced, the single player campaign does feature other gamemodes (and a trophy ceremony per completion). Unlike Quake 3, bots are surprisingly intelligent, some are even able to fool the player when following them (and when team-based you can command them!). Many difficulties to choose depending on your mood. Music score from Michiel van den Bos, Peter Hajba and Alexander Brandon is something worth remembering through the decades. Bot battles in domination are entertaining to watch as spectator, especially if you pickup the level editor (included in the System folder located inside the game installation folder): grab a Deathmatch map, add many capture points, increase team quantities to 4 (for red blue, green and gold team!) add as many bots as you can (16, or 32 if patched) and watch the turf battles go! Modding community as well!

Multiplayer-influenced games don't go higher than 8. This game is the best at it. Has little single player replay value, given some maps are so crappy to play, which were later on modified in Quake Live for better. The bots are relatively straight-forward, so it's purely skill-based, it doesn't evolve or change throughout the single player experience, save for environments and introduction of weapons+items. The game that pushed the Arena FPS genre forward and the eventual e-sports term. Also highly moddable, one of John Carmack's best creations.

If you're fan of the real-time close combat, you can go nuts with the hand-to-hand attack combo system, along with the extendable movements through game progress which are fantastic. Also the music adds up a lot when fighting and pursuing! Now then, the story is not bad. The levels are either too big or "filled with so much emptiness": It feels annoying when you have to walk through all the big empty places, just looking for hidden items or enemies camping around... and they feel repetitive too. Some weapons feel weird to handle at times, like the rocket launcher, or single handed weapons, which can't use the left hand to strike, instead you have to switch to melee again... That's a detail though. In the end, the game feels half-rushed. If multiplayer mode existed and the levels were smaller and better elaborated, score for this game could've raised straight to heaven.

If you're fan of the real-time close combat, you can go nuts with the hand-to-hand attack combo system, along with the extendable movements through game progress which are fantastic, also the music adds up a lot when fighting and pursuing! Now then, the story is not bad. The levels are either too big or "filled with so much emptiness": It feels annoying when you have to walk through all the big empty places, just looking for hidden items or enemies camping around... and they feel repetitive too. Some weapons feel weird to handle at times, like the rocket launcher, or single handed weapons, which can't use the left hand to strike, instead you have to switch to melee again... That's a detail though. In the end, the game feels half-rushed. If multiplayer mode existed and the levels were smaller and better elaborated, score for this game could've raised straight to heaven.

I remember played it for around 6 minutes, trying to not lead my score towards disappointment. Me, being a 2097 player. The game feels rushed. The input controls are a mess, the arenas are too big, characters doesn't feel special. Couldn't pay attention to the story (if there was any).