Started the game yesterday and completed 7 chapters. And I must say this is definitely a game worth a playthrough.
The game in its entirety happens in a futuristic Dubai and a post-catastrophe one at that. A series of devastating sandstorms wreak havoc across the city and the wealthy Sheikhs and the politicians vacate quietly and secretly leaving behind the citizens in despair. The city is left uninhabitable. Colonel Konrad, the commander of the 33rd Battalion, US Army who was deployed at Afghanistan was departing for home when the sandstorms struck and goes missing. Any attempts to contact the Colonel go in vain. A Delta Force recon squad is sent by the US military to investigate his whereabouts and evacuate any survivors. Enter Captain Martin Walker (voiced by the veteran voice actor Nolan North) accompanied by Delta Operatives 1st Lieutenant Lugo and Staff Sergeant Adams who arrives in Dxb in search and rescue of the missing Colonel. And the game begins.
Gameplay is pretty much straightforward and linear and resembles any other third-person shooter for most of the aspects. The player must complete the objective as he moves from checkpoint to checkpoint with the 2 men squad. At any given time, any 2 weapons may be carried by the player and the standard issue equipment includes the M4A1 assault rifle and the Beretta M9 pistol. Suppressors may be attached into the barrel of the weapons to reduce the noise impact. This however, does not apply to those that are obtained from the enemy NPCs. The AK47, Deagle, Micro 9 mm, UMP 45 SMG, RPG-7, SCAR-H, W1300 shotgun and other equipment may be found during the course of the game, mostly from the downed enemy NPCs but ammo is generally scarce and is expected of the player to use them wisely. Some weapon may have a scope or a grenade launcher attached to it and the player can switch between the scope/iron sights or the secondary mode of fire. Three different types of grenades may be carried - frag, sticky and stun. The trajectory of the grenades is indicated prior to throwing them a la Uncharted so the player gets a fair idea where the grenade might land and detonate. Squad-based tactics although present in the game, has minimal effects - for instance, the player may command the squad to focus and take down a particular target. Lugo for instance, is the designated Marksman of the squad, carries a sniper rifle with him and can take down targets from a great deal of distance whereas Adams is the heavy gunner and carries a LMG and a shotgun with him for quick close combat takedowns. OR, the player can command one of the squad mates to revive a downed member.
Cover also plays a crucial role in the game and the player can take cover behind objects while blind firing the enemy AI. Some of the cover may be destroyed by the AI as well so the player will have to dispatch the enemies quickly or will have to switch between covers. I did however run into issues with the cover at certain occasions when the crosshair is obscured as the player ducks out of the cover to take out the enemy AI - turns out I was simply emptying my clip without hitting the enemy. Sometimes while switching between covers, the player would refuse to get behind the object and would expose himself only to get himself killed. What a bummer! It is sometimes hard to overlook the flawed cover mechanics when the rest of the combat system falls in place perfectly. Gore and violence is depicted brutally and sometimes a bit disturbing - blood, severed limbs and bodies of the soldiers and the civilians, pile of decaying corpses with flesh flies buzzing around, corpses hanging on lamp posts, executing the civilians etc. You get the picture!
All said and done, there are a few differences that make the game feel different from the traditional war shooters. Sandstorms play a vital role in the game and change the terrain dynamically during the course of the gameplay. For instance, the player can shoot and break the panels of glass which will let a great deal of sand flow through the ruptured hole thus creating a path. Sandstorms may arise during combat sequences which may favor the AI or the player, by hindering the viewability. The game also features a lot of vertical movement through zip-lines from building to building or rappelling across 2 different platforms.
The game utilizes the UE 3.0 and goes without saying, is well optimized for the PC including those with the low-end specs. There are not many graphics options to be tinkered with other than the resolution, texture detail, shadow detail, toggle fullscreen, v-sync, ambient occlusion and the overall quality as indicated in the screenshot below. There is a bummer however. If your display has an aspect ratio of 16:10 (as was my case - 1920 x 1200), expect those annoying little black bars to show up at the top and bottom of the screen a la Assassin's Creed. But once you get the hang of it, it becomes far less noticeable to hinder the gameplay. The visuals although neatly done with sun blooms and crisp textures, occasionally there were a few frame drops at certain locations. Kudos to Yager devs. for portraying Dubai in the most brutal sense. Towers, skyscrapers, night clubs, office suites, exotic cars and SUVs, traffic sign boards, shopping districts - everything left devastated in the sandstorm that brings about its horrors. The narratives of the game deserve a special mention as well. The story begins to gradually unfold as the player progresses through the game realizing the horrors that lay in store. I am pretty sure the game is banned in the UAE - the Sheikhs wouldn't want to see their city in such a pitiful shape!
Will continue the game tonight.
hyeah:
