Well, my initial crush has cooled. The cold reality of forever respawing enemies, a limited supply of ammo, the repetitive environments (how many closets can one hall hold), and more than anything else having to repeat sections over and over because either I'm a bad player or the game is too difficult (probably a combination of both). While I don't mind a challenge, I become very frustrated when the stakes are so high. I can accept 5-10 minutes of lost game play when I die, but 30+ minutes (at least for me) is too much.
I'm still very impressed with the presentation and will hold on to the game to play between better titles when I'm looking for something quick and dirty. As I haven't finished the game, I honestly don't feel right giving an "official" score, but, based on my experiences, I'd give this game a 5 out of 10.
I just picked up my copy today (10/26/2007) @ Gamestop. Gamespot won't let me add it to my list of games cause they say it won't be out until the 31st. I was told that nobody pre-ordered it in my general area at the two stores closest to me only and that they each only had one copy. Luckily the second one I stopped at still had theirs.
Anyway, I've spent about an hour with it and so far its pretty neat. It uses the same control scheme as Metroid Prime Hunters which really works well.
The grahpics are very nice and really show off what the DS is capable of doing.
The audio has been excellent. Nice ambient effects (thunder and other such environmental effects) and very good background music ... just the right amount of creepiness.
You'll be equipped with a notebook to scribble in (only had to use it once so far) and you'll come across map pages so you can see where you are at on the current level. My biggest complaint is that it is very difficult to tell which direction you are facing when using the map (and there is no compas).
You'll get a flashlight, a nightstick, and a pistol early on. Similar to Doom 3, you apparently can't hold a flash light and a weapon at the same time, so, you'll have to make some choices. My kingdom for some duct tape. However, it is a mechanic that makes sense in terms of game balancing.
Enemies appear to respawn, so if you accidentally go back into an area you didn't mean to (thanks to the bad map icon), you'll have to fight all over again. There does appear to be an abundent supply of health pickups, however, these do not respawn.
Again, I have only spent an hour with the title, but so far have been very impressed. While the gameplay is nothing groundbreaking, when you consider the whole package of gameplay, control, audio, and graphis and that it is running at an awesome framerate, well, GameCock should be pretty pleased. Hopefully it'll garner a good buzz and sales will pick up.
If I ever finish it (I'm notorious for starting but never finishing games), I'll do an offical review.
Sony was kind enough to include the PS2 update on their site to allow you to play hard-drive based PS2 games, but, apparently not the network configuration software, as I couldn't find it.
For some reason my original network setup disc that came with my slim PS2 wouldn't work. After some research it sounded like most Madden titles included the software. I'm not a football guy, but would have picked it up just to solve my problem. Luckily I re-read a post concerning the topic and discovered Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal contained the network setup software!
Woot! Now I can play ATV 4 or Resistance on the same machine (course not at the same time). Hopefully this tip will help somebody else.
