Game Info

Developer: Free Radical Design
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: May 20, 2008
Genre: First-person shooter
Available Platforms: PS3
Modes: Singleplayer, cooperative and competitive online
Reviewer’s Experience: Played single-player campaign through on normal with co-op. Tested competitive multiplayer.
Author’s Note: The screenshots on this page are from the official website. Enjoy them while you can, because the game never looks like this. The textures are muddy, the particle effects bad, the characters last-gen. My guess as to why? These pictures were taken back when the game was running unoptimized on the PC.

What’s Great:

• Coop. They say co-op can save a bad game, and here it’s true. Co-op is fun when you’re playing with someone you like–but isn’t that always the case?

What’s Not:

Graphics. The game is rendered at 576p, which is technically standard definition. This is unacceptable. Although there is some antialiasing–jaggies are rare–the textures are muddy and horrible. The particle effects are lacking greatly. The lighting is terrible and last-gen. The character models also look like last-gen upgrades, with their facial animations being repetitive and their textures low-res. This game looks horrible.

Dumb-shit AI all around. The game won’t ever, EVER advance without you. The AI doesn’t know what’s going on–only how to shoot forward.

This game’s best weapon is removed an hour in. I try not to spoil in these reviews–but there’s no keeping this twist a secret. About 1/4th of the way through the game, you’re not a Mantel soldier anymore. You can’t use Nectar anymore. And this is the worst decision the designers made–they took the one great idea and removed it.

The dialogue. The story may be half-decent, but the dialogue you have to endure is mind-shattering. Both sides have only 5 or so lines, and you’ll’ve heard all of them in 30 minutes. And then, for the next six hours, you’ve got to endure them all again. And again. And again. And A-FREAKIN’-GAIN! You’ll want to shoot your allies too.

This game never had a chance. The graphics are trash, the AI is trash, the dialogue is trash, the paper-thin competitive multiplayer is trash. This isn’t even worth a rental.