Introduction:
First of all this game had some serious hype. It has been talked about as the most anticipated title to date, and everyone seemed rabid for this game as Emergence Day grew near. I however, believe it or not, was still on the fence about this game - I generally play shooters on the PC and rarely at that. Due to all the hype, and every single friend I know getting the game, I decided to give it a shot anyway.
About The Game:
The game has online versus mode (ranked and standard player match) as well a campaign (or story mode). One great benefit to the story mode, is you can also play it in co-op mode (even on live) for those of you that want to team up for the good of the world.
Single Player:
The story mode as I mentioned above can also be played with a friend, without anything cut out, including the cutscenes, which I found to be a great benefit and alot of fun. There are 5 acts in all, most of them I would estimate took about 2 hours or so to completely (I am by far no expert at these type of games), Act 5 being the shortest (this one clocked in about 35 minutes to complete). There are three difficulty levels for the story mode: Casual, Hardcore, and Insane. In order to play insane you have to complete the game in either Casual or Hardcore. So far I have completed the game on casual and I am in the final stages of Act 4 on Hardcore (at the time of this posting. The story is very well written, and the enemies act very smart - they use cover, they try to flank you, everything that you as a player are trying to do to them. The A/I is pretty impressive. In fact the only negative thing I have to say about the story mode of the game is the ending cinematic was a bit weak in my honest opinion.
Multiplayer:
To be fair I have not played versus very many times yet, but so far it is amazing. You can fight on a team of 4 versus 4, which allows for you to come up with some interesting strategies to try and take out the other team. For all of you that like to compete against other gamers I think that the maps, and game types will definately not dissapoint. I have to admit Curb Stomping another player on live is alot of fun.
But wait there is more! If you prefer to just group up with a buddy and just work your way through the story you can do this locally on split screen, connecting with your friends console on a LAN, and evey over Live, I personally went through the entire story mode with a friend, and its great to have someone to actually talk to, and actually plan your next move, instead of having the CPU blindy do what he thinks is best. To be fair, the CPU team mates are rather smart and help out a ton, but you cannot really come up with a plan with them over voice chat now can you?
My only complaint (and the reason for the 9.5 instead of 10) is that your current save game is used for 1 Player, and online Co-op. this means that in order to play co-op with a friend and not skip a section of the game, you cannot play story mode on your own when that friend is not around - its not horrible, but I really wish seperate save versions could be provided.
Graphics / Gameplay:
I have to say that the graphics are probably the best I have seen thus far on any game I have ever played. There are so many things that just make you stare in awe over. The rain looks extremely realistic, your gun even makes the area around it blurry (from heat & smoke). The gameplay is amazing, and the controls are layed out perfectly by default. There are nice little extras too, like the benefits, and drawbacks that you recieve when trying and succeeding (or failing) an active reload. Enough cannot be said about the graphics and gameplay, you simply have to experience it for yourself.
Achievements:
I think the achievements are spread out pretty well in the game. There are achievements for finishing each act, for each difficulty, and of course the higher difficulty levels are worth more points. Also, are achievements that are based on collecting COG tags, consider this the “hidden fruit” of the game - 30 in all, and 1 achievement for each 10 you find. There are 2 achievements you get simply be doing active reloads, and also achievements for playing co-op with a friend (of course my gripe here is you have to be the secondary player to get the points - when I think it should simply be based on co-op story mode for both players). Finally there are achievements based on multiplayer play - I am always on the fence on these type of achievements. I understand that its a great reward, and something to strive for (and keep you playing) multiplayer - but on the other hand it requires that you have the pay service in order to recieve these achievements. You cannot get the multi-player achievements unless its ranked play - and you cannot play ranked play if you dont pay for a gold membership. I, and most of you probably have gold status - but telling standard silver members that they cannot achieve the same 1,000 points that the rest of us can without buying it - it just doesnt sit well with me..
In Short:
This is the game everyone was talking about, this was the game that everyone said you HAD to get, and honestly I didn’t buy into it at first. Finally when the game was released I went out and picked up a copy after seeing that EVERYONE (as expected) was playing this game - and I figured I should at least give it a fair chance. That being said, as you can see in my Live Eye profile, at the time of this post, I have spent more time on this game than any other. That is a pretty interesting statistic considering this is a combined play time for each game since 10/01/06. (of course I did have two repair orders in the begining of that time. If this game allowed you to save seperate co-op and 1 player story mode progress, i probably would have given it a 10 out of 10, it is the only thing that truely lowers the overall score in my eyes. My rant of the achievements and non-gold members also plays a factor, but that can be overlooked considering all the other factors of this great game.
Final Score:
