I’m going to be the major outlier here I think, but that’s OK…
Finished this last night. I’ll start by saying I keep trying to get into R & C but generally just bounce off it, so it’s actually a triumph that I got to the end this time. Generally it’s just not my thing. I almost didn’t buy it.
Visually, the most technically accomplished game I’ve ever played, and there were a couple of points where they used the ssd loading trick in spectacular ways; but for the most part I kept thinking back to the original Prey, and Portal even, and thinking it wasn’t going big with that impressive gimmick* often enough to differentiate itself from those really quite old games.
The mind blowing set piece from that first trailer, that got me wanting to try it out was still mind blowing; but also was still, to me, just that. A set piece that you don’t see very often after that.
Pulling a rift towards you in levels was frustratingly prebuilt into each level, which kept making me wish I had a portal gun instead. In fact it felt like a visual reskin of something like Blink from Dishonored except Blink was more flexible in it’s use.
I did enjoy the weapons a fair bit, but tbh I ended up relying on the shrooms and a couple of other autonomous helper weapons while pounding the enemy with grenades about 80% of the time.
Story wise, it was enjoyable enough, but I did start to rethink the Pixar comparison a little. There’s no doubt that it’s visually accomplished enough to be making the big animation studios perhaps think about how they make movies; but I felt like the story was more Saturday morning cartoon series than a gut punching, right in the feels Pixar opus. I kept thinking more about Dreamworks as I played tbh 😉
It didn’t outstay its welcome but it also really didn’t leave me wanting more. Like I say, this series has never really been my thing so I know I’m going to be in the minority. I just feel like beyond the visuals it didn’t feel “all that” in the end.
*re gimmicks. I get annoyed when folk use the word in a derogatory way, so I don’t mean it that way here. The word comes from the old days of street tricks and gambling games etc, where a gimmick was basically anything that was used to sell an illusion.
In games, everything is a gimmick, because it’s all an illusion. In games, the analog stick is (and was initially dismissed as) a gimmick. So was 3D graphics. Gimmicks are bloody brilliant!