Keeper_Andrus on 12/6/2009 at 16:59

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I never had trouble with the tutorial, but I do think it should be skippable on replays. I hate doing it again, and again...

Muzman on 9/12/2009 at 10:01

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Joining the fray.

This game is great. Could well be one fo the most stylish things I've seen in a long time; the cutscenes, the music, the 'decor'. Most of the things that are said to be wrong with it are true. But it's still awfully fun to play at times. When you get stuck in a basement somewhere trying some stupid jump over and over again it drives you mad, but once you finally get it and can free run for a while you let it off the hook again (or at least I do)
I'm only about half way through but the story is definitely a bit clunky. Can't really shake that 'came in late' or 'missed the first season' feeling about it and I doubt it will.
What it needed in terms of skill/difficulty and story is to be a lot longer. I imagine the level design time is a bit of a hurdle there. But here we are, a devil-may-care group of illegal couriers sticking it to the man, running the only truly private message service in the "world" (or something like that, I didn't read the manual). Geez, forget conspiracies and murder and what not, half the game could just be me doing the damn job.
That then is where you refine all your game skills. A tutorial is too old school for this and also not fun enough.
This goes to the skill aspect as well; I'm supposed to be this elite runner, but I only play one on TV, so when I'm thrown into the world they put challenges in front of you that you aren't skilled enough to face and you feel like a complete tool stumbling around. Your physical confidence and momentum is being beaten out of you. One of those weirdly made basements had me stuck for ages. I had to do a wall run and spin onto a bar to get up to a walkway, but the space was really short and I couldn't work it out. I'd done all the apparently necessary moves in other places, or so I thought. What I needed was to run in on a angle and hit the wall closer rather than further out as I had been doing, which seemed counter intuitive in that space. I didn't have the required understanding of the skill to do it at that point. The mechanics hadn't sunk in yet.

This is a design problem, and I think they weren't always sure of how to make puzzles and levels in general for this game a lot of the time. The system is very flexible and has a lot of skillful nuance that passing the tute, or even playing much of it up to that point, doesn't give you. So you're not entirely aware that it's there and what the possibilities are. And here's a puzzle that seems to require a Prince of Persia hit-the-button-at-the-right-time-in-the-right-order sort of thing. It wasn't really, but it seemed like that sort of thing. Falling back on design tropes like that is something they should have avoided. (I'd like more interactivity of a fairly realistic sort as well. There's a lingering 'Six foot fence' thing going on there. If I was in that basement I could shimmy up the mezanine struts fairly easily. Slowly, but surely. My character, the extraordinary athlete who dangles one handed from helicopters, can't. Give players the lame option as well and design accordingly, I say. But that's by the by).

I think by the time I finish the game I'll probably be quite good at the mid level manouvres. That's a about the point they should have thrown the world into chaos and had people start shooting at you (and perhaps thrown you unto unfamilar territory like malls and taken away runner vision too).

Everything else is spot on though. It's thoroughly original and unique. A true achievement. Everyone should give it a go. It's just a bummer that the problems are in the aspects that most people take note of; game design and story. It's generally a lot of fun though. I hope there's more.

Muzman on 9/12/2009 at 21:06

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PC all the way.
And yes indeed. I haven't played seen every game of late, but it must have one of the most advanced lighting systems around to make that bright and clean look work so well I'd reckon.

driver on 10/12/2009 at 01:23

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Have you looked into the DLC? I passed it over because I'm backwards and don't like parting with money if I'm not going to get any physical media for it, but perhaps it would appeal to you.

kidmystik101 on 10/12/2009 at 11:59

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Wow, the sections with the enemy runners are CREEPY without music, because you can't see them, or hear anything apart from their footsteps. It's like "Holy shit holy shit going to get killed run faster faster faster faster fast"