good atmosphere...for a while

much like other survival horror games such as the silent hill series, this game relies very much on its atmosphere of tension and horror to keep the gamer's interest going throughout its duration, keeping you on your toes as to what terrors will meet you around the corner. and this set-up works, but only for so long.

this is a game, as I said prior, that will leave you on your toes. in it, you play an fbi agent on the trail of a serial killer, with some bloodthirsty psychos impeding your progress, which you'll need to dispatch with (mostly) melee weaponry from a first person perspective. the reason behind the psychotic state of these people is left a mystery until toward the end. along the way, you'll also come across murder scenes, which you'll need your forensic equipment to solve and find clues to continue on your journey. as you go on, the 'crazies' become crazier and even more physically malformed, and the protagonist's own sanity even comes into question.

sound like a winning formula? well, it is...at first. the game starts off so well, striking a nice balance between pure tension, unrelentingly disturbing horror, and classic "BOO!" cheap-scare tactics, with particularly intense fights with your cuckoo enemies, the tension heightened by the claustrophobically limited space in which you'll often have to manoeuver, the short range of your weapons and the darkness that enshrouds your urban decay surroundings.

but here's the problem (I know you've all been waiting with bated breaths of anticipation for this, right...RIGHT?) - it gets monotonous FAST. the beautifully horrible environment that you traverse through becomes less fascinating as you go on when you realize that everything looks the SAME. it slowly turns from terror to pure boredom. also not helping is the overzealous use of darkness for atmosphere. yes, it does create tension during key moments, but it also makes it terribly confusing to figure out where the hell you currently are, let alone know where to go from your current position. along with terror dissipating into boredom, it also leads to frustration. combat also gets monotonous. they start off intense, but the enemies and the strategies you use against them hardly change. once you become a pro at disposing the game's wackos, you'll have no problem at all making it through the latter portions of the game. this kind of predictability really hampers the experience.

and the forensic scenes...what wasted potential! the game practically does all the work for you. what could have been interesting albeit gruesome puzzle-solving ala silent hill's creative head-scratchers (on higher difficulties anyway) turns out to be something that you'd find on a sub-edutainment title. literally, move over the bodies until an icon pops up telling you what button to press; press the button, and you'll pull out some fancy gizmo collecting fingerprint data or whatever, repeat as many times as necessary and you're on your way. when people say that games these days pander to idiots, they should use this game's forensic sections as positive proof for this phenomenon.

so yes, this game is a great idea, that starts off as something that's going to live up to its awesome premise, but much like the mental status of your character and the minions you fight against, it slowly spirals downward into an irreversible decay. only the storyline, to find out what will happen to the protagonist, to find the serial killer, and to find out what the hell's going on with these crazy folks that want to kill you, will keep you going once the monotony settles in.

hopefully the sequel, bloodshot, will fix most of its predecessor's more glaring problems and deliver a product that truly lives up to its potential, and not just at the beginning, either, but ALL the way through.