I promised myself when I started to write these reviews that I wouldn’t lower myself to using casual profanity and inappropriate humour to describe any game no matter how infuriating or bad it was. This leaves in something of a quandary as unfortunately there is no other way to describe this adult nappy shit stain of a game.
The story is the most boring, generic good-cop-gone-bad-cos-the-dad-that-loved-you-was-too-fucking-dumb-to-duck (seriously, watch the cut scene where his dad croaks and try not to haemorrhage laughing) story you’ve ever seen. Your character Jack Slate (yes REALLY) is an alcoholic borderline psychopath with a badge and it’s up to you to direct his homicidal tendencies towards thuggish morons who all frequent the same clothes shop. In true fashion police style, the snazzier the outfit the more armour the guy’s packing.
The baddies are pretty accurate with their guns, which is just as well considering they’re all apparently special needs henchman, clearly following this line of work because beating people and murder are easier than maths and… y’know… speaking to people. All they ever seem to do is stay in cover or run right at you. That’s it. No flanking, no moving in groups, no team interactions, nothing, nada, zip. They are the very epitome of walking meat sacks. Coma patients with guns. Tooled up vegetables. You get the idea.
So is there anything good here? Sort of. But nothing that lasts. The gameplay is a mix of cover shooter and brawler and it rams a four-foot failure phallus up the arse of both. You’ll frequently run past cover points only to get gunned down, your aim is hugely inaccurate (perhaps a reference to Jack’s alcoholism and thus inability to shoot anything further from him than the barrel of his gun) and the brawling is as enthralling as a cuddle fight with a Downs patient. I wouldn’t mind so much but this is a Namco game. These are the guys that brought us Soul Calibur and Tekken for Christ’s sake! Cover shooter side they gave us Kill.Switch (if you don’t know it, find it and play it – without it you wouldn’t have Gears of War) which was tight, responsive and had some truly great gun battle set-pieces. What the FUCK happened here? To make things worse this is a franchise reboot. They did this game on Xbox and PS2 years ago and it was much better then, even with crap-for-day graphics and no enemy AI at all. This series of games has gotten worse with each instalment. A real shame considering the first game actually wasn’t too shabby.
The only things to compliment here are the takedowns and the disarms, the series’ speciality. Once you’ve flailed wildly at a bad guy for long enough a prompt appears and you can tap the A button and one of two glorious things happens: a) Jack grabs the gun of his assailant and wrenches it away from them and as they float back up from the startling surprise of being disarmed by a sentient being their head will automatically land right in the middle of your crosshair and tapping the right trigger lands a perfect headshot. b) Jack will perform a finishing melee flurry that makes UFC look like a tickling competition. Throats are kicked, necks are snapped and groins are wrenched (or eaten if you’re playing one of the so-called stealth doggy sections) in some of the most over the top violence since Ike and Tina Turner. These actually do create a genuine feeling of joy, if only for the fact that it makes you wonder if the protagonist is as pissed off as you are at the CGI fuckwits standing between you and the end credits/instant trade in, but it doesn’t last. Even with weapon takedowns thrown in and even more violent takedowns as a result the novelty wears off.
Then there are the dog sections. Oh jesus. You “sneak” around biting people. That’s it. If you hold a button you can see the heartbeat of the sap you’re about to annihilate. That’s it. If you get spotted, run around for a bit and then just charge at them. Honestly some of the most boring and mundane gameplay I have ever faced. And I’ve played Brittany’s Dance Beat (don’t judge me).
So what you are left with is a steaming pile of gaming crap. You’ll probably enjoy the first half hour of play and then you’ll quickly realise that that’s all this game has to offer. Warehouse after bloody warehouse of running, flailing, and setting your dog on people with levels of violence that are just silly, rather than fun. Probably why we never saw a demo of this crock because if you could get one then you’d save yourself forty quid by just changing your own personal level of intoxication before each play through and bam. That’s the game. Just avoid it. It’s easier.
