The Video Game Critic

It's good.  It has no multiplayer which hurts it.  The action is very frenetic.  Unfortunately the woodland areas are a lot duller than the town areas.  There are much better FPS out there but it is solid and worth a playthrough once.

Don't listen to people's praise for this one; it's actually one of the worst games of the year.

There's something so offensively cynical and arrogant about this project, both on the part of EA and Criterion.  Basically, it's a FPS that's hanging everything on the gimmick of destroying everything and everyone you see. Sure, that's impressive for about 2 or so minutes, but then it becomes agonizingly repetitve as you basically do the exact same thing for the rest of the game (which is ludicriously short, by the way).  And the controls are stiff, the AI is dumb and/or cheap, there's no multiplayer at all, no real reason for replayability, and in the version I played, it locked up on me three times in a row, forcing me to reboot my system.  And the game doesn't look that great, anyway.

And hey, destruction on its own just isn't enough to make a game worth $50, especially when you have games like Mercenaries doing the whole mass destruction thing much better, with more fun, style and substance.    

Frankly, Criterion should be ashamed of themselves (especially considering how good their Burnout games are).  It's games like this that give this industry a bad name, and the fact that a piece of garbage like this outsold something like Okami is truly depressing.

[QUOTE=IronKnux]About the whole locking up thing, that's never happened to me or anyone else I know.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that actually happened to me with the demo I got before the game's release, so at least those issues were fixed in the final copy.  But even fixing the lock-ups isnj't enough to make this game any good.

I think if you can get it under $20 (which you should) it is worth it. Mindless fun, great sound and weapons and it's over in six hours. Great game of 2006? I really don't think so but I spent $17 on it and thought I got my monies worth.

[QUOTE=IronKnux]Michael D, what was on the demo in particular? If I were to judge this game by the first level alone then I'd probably end up agreeing with you, but the later levels are completely different. It gets much better.
[/QUOTE]

Well, the demo had about two levels, I think, and of course, it locked up 3 times in a row.  And when I was playing, I was appalled at how repetitive, unfun, and slapdash an effort this was.  This might have been big had it come out in 1993, but with games like Halo, Gears of War, and many better shooters out there, there's just no excuse for garbage like this.

And Geoff Keighley had the gall to hype this thing before it launched, saying it was "more next-gen than anything at the Xbox 360 launch."  Hope he's enjoying eating his hat over that comment.

[QUOTE=IronKnux]Michael D, what was on the demo in particular? If I were to judge this game by the first level alone then I'd probably end up agreeing with you, but the later levels are completely different. It gets much better.
[/QUOTE]

Well, the demo had about two levels, I think, and of course, it locked up 3 times in a row.  And when I was playing, I was appalled at how repetitive, unfun, and slapdash an effort this was.  This might have been big had it come out in 1993, but with games like Halo, Gears of War, and many better shooters out there, there's just no excuse for garbage like this.

And Geoff Keighley had the gall to hype this thing before it launched, saying it was "more next-gen than anything at the Xbox 360 launch."  Hope he's enjoying eating his hat over that comment.