Now I’ve said how gorgeous Joanna Dark is a couple of times, it’s true, the folks at Microsoft and Rare made sure she was a sexy little thing. But they didn’t stop there. There are other gals who were designed with supermodel in mind. Not Dead or Alive women mind you, but beautiful, strong willed types, that just happen to be impossibly hot. I’d say the same thing about the men in the game, but I couldn’t pick out a good looking guy if my life depended on it. But given the attention the women received by the developers, I’m going to assume they too are good looking. The game zips by at a healthy 60 fps without any sort of slowdown, whether the screen is screaming by while I’m doing 90 in my hovercraft or it’s a full-on battle with NPCs shooting other NPCs the game never loses track of what it is. That being a next gen system title.
Futuristic buildings, architecture that shows off the rendering capabilities of the 360, even the cool looking futuristic doors and locks. It’s the most minute things that I like to look at and darnit, if I want to walk up to the remains of a destroyed spider-bot and examine it’s robotic guts then I’m going to do it. Lighting effects are crisp and bright and the game’s levels are contrasted nicely by the actual location. When infiltrating a scientific lab I expect everything to be nice and clean, and have an almost sterile feel to it, I get it. And likewise when roaming the docks, the grittier look to the doors and buildings is expected, again, I got it.
If I was going to bitch about something (and I always have something to complain about) it would be that I was almost expecting to not see the same bad guys coming after me in any given scenario. One mission had me spying on bad guys and getting their voice print copied. Well after killing said bad guy (who in all fairness looked original) I was disappointed to see his clone come after me two minutes later, then again. It’s almost as if I am expecting too much from these 360 titles, should the development team take the time to make a completely original bad guy for each any every one I face, even if it’s only for three seconds? No, that’s an unrealistic expectiation, yet I did. Go figure.
The title also features my favorite in game Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. With as many speakers as I am pushing, I really like to see how these games put my surround sound system to the test, or vice versa. Well think about this, when speaking with another character, if I turn away from them, the speakers recognize that and the character’s voice goes from the main center speaker to the side speakers in sync with the way I am moving. I’ve played plenty of games and this is one of those things that I really appreciated. Of course, the game has incredibly detailed sound effects. The explosions, the gunfire, the voices, all come out crisp and clear and to tell you the truth I would I expected it to. Anything other then “holy sh*t” awesome was going to be a letdown.
