Usually, when one sees the Square Enix logo in the opening screens of a video game, they expect an epic adventure of mind-blowing story and graphics. Such was not the case with this title.
Graphics are amazing, brings back memories of numerous older games that feature a cartoony or comic book like look to them, excellent shading and drawing. Particle density, however, is something to be desired, even using an assault rifle, there is next to no muzzle flash to go with so much kick. And this is where this title starts going down hill.
Game play is fun for the first few hours, then gets extremely repetitive. One cool thing about the first mission is the option to request a weapon based on wanting to go in guns blazing or sneaking around. The stealth aspect of the game is strangely akin to Metal Gear Solid, but with stupider AI. Pathing seems incomplete and confused, and most stealth situations ends up forcing you to pull out a weapon to either stun or kill enemies. The hacking game is also challenging, sometimes too challenging, even from the easiest terminals, the various ways to protect yourself from being traced simply do not work.
Sound is just poor in this title, the soundtrack doesn’t stand out and the same sound effects ringing in your ear so frequently causes headaches and annoyance. Even the lethal ammo based weapons sound alike, pistol and assault rifles should not sound even remotely alike in any way.
All in all, this game is definitely above average, but is more of a ‘rent first, buy later if you like it’ title. 6.5/10.
