July 11th, 2008 by MarvellousG
The horrors of improving the original
Bonus levels? Bonus levels? Again this doesn’t really seem to be what critics of the first game were asking for when they wanted improvements. Could you fix the broken AI please, Artoon? Could you make sure I actually have a chance to NOT DIE in two hits? Can the controls be improved so as to make your generic main character controllable, please? What’s that, you say, bonus levels? Oh, never mind, my complaints don’t matter anymore; fifty hours more of unplayability and bonus levels sounds like a better solution to the problems of the original than my ideas. We’re sorry to be so harsh, but we really think that Artoon should be changing more than just the missions if they want this game to get anything above a 4 from anybody.
But surely the final new feature will save this game from mediocrity or worse? Surely Artoon could find a way to elevate the painful to play original into an enjoyable experience, and salvage some of the promise that the ideas of the original had? Well, Artoon are going to try and do that with their final new feature; completely revamped animations. Okay, please kill me. 50 hours I could manage, bonus levels were acceptable (mildly), but the fact that the only problems Artoon saw with the original were the animations really worries me. If these features are all that they are changing, and the bonus levels are just the same as the ones we saw in the original, then I am going to have to say to you readers DO NOT BUY THIS GAME.
However, maybe the bonus levels will be incredible Splinter Cell style pure stealth sequences. Maybe the revamped animations (*stifles laughter and pity*) will mean a completely new level of narrative, akin to the Metal Gear series. Maybe the 50 hours of gameplay will bring with it some of the finest set pieces ever seen in videogaming.
But then we all know that every sentence in the above paragraph could have finished with a hopeful question mark or ‘(/End Sarcasm)’ and nobody would have read it any differently; nobody is expecting good things to come of this, and probably rightly so.
We are not holding our breath
I’m going to have to ask you, because it seems unfair and unjust to not do so, to wait for our review until you decide to leave this game alone, but in reality we all know it’s probably not going to get a score that would have to be rounded up to the nearest ten, as opposed to down to zero.
So, it’s a depressing conclusion we come to after this preview is done; this game is almost certainly going to suck, and the developers are doing nothing to even try and fix the problems critics had with the ‘flawed’ original. What’s that you say? Oh, yeah, you’re right, the completely revamped animations might just save it. Oh yeah.
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