Now the folks at 3D Realms, 2K games, Humanhead studios and Venom games (that’s an awful lot of people working on one game) decided that they were really going to push the envelope in developing the look and design of the game. Moving in the direction of “Let’s make this place look as wet and disturbing as possible” coupled with a slew of “We’ll also make the rules of physics non-existant” tied up nicely with a whole bunch of “Holy crap I can’t believe I just did that” type of gameplay.
Yes, the game looks fantastic, not just fantastic because the creatures look really nasty and raw, and not fantastic because the environments are textured really well and designed to ellicit a slimy, sick feeling to them. But fantastic because the game does an incredible job of constantly surprising you with both big and little things. Half teleported school buses or planes can be seen meshed into the alien landscape, little creatures can be carried and their legs ripped off which you can throw, because when their legs are ripped off they blow up. You can turn off sidewalks that allow you to walk up walls and ceilings, and in doing so your enemies will fall to their deaths. You can spirit walk which allows you to leave your physical body and go and kill enemies that are laying in wait, or activate switches to access areas your physical body cannot. All of these things and more make the game such a breathtakingly beautiful game, yes, this is something that only a machine as powerful as the 360 (or a high end PC) could run.
Combat is just another aspect of how the game translates the visuals, often times you will find yourself fighting against aliens that are running on the wall or ceiling or even bouncing in and out through portals. You too will have to use these physics altering devices in order to combat the aliens effectively. You will also note tht as you start looking at the alien language appearing on random monitors, the language flashes into English and then back to the alien language, as if to tell you that you are begining to understand their tongue through your own powers. Even cooler still the alien hunters start taunting you in English. Don’t even get me started on what some of the Bosses look like…
The game even approaches death itself as yet another means to show off the powerful graphics and unique gameplay. For when you do die, you take the Death walk, which you in ethereal form must shoot Death Wraiths and replenish your slowly accending body as it approaches the physical world. Shooting the two different wraiths with your spirit bow replenishes both your physical health and your spiritual energy (both are used throughout the game). Red Death wraiths replenish your physical body while blue ones replenish you spirit energy. I can honestly say I have never seen anything like this in a game and was quite pleased with how it affected play.
