The story mode is short, maybe 8 hours? I find this a great length, because I like to play a lot of games, but it was a frequent negative found in criticism. I think that's unfair, because the time trial and race modes probably offer another good 20+ hours for the true completionists. Those harder challenges didn't hook me, though, as I rarely have patience to practice at a game any more.
Helpful tip for the story mode: try to listen to the first advice given about combat. Run away! There's a cool achievement if you can manage to never fire a weapon. I think this makes the game easier and way more fun. There was one scene, a large spiraling stairway, where trying to kung-fu my way to the bottom was getting tiring (20+ deaths). I started just sprinting past the cops, and made it to the event trigger no problem. Was a tad strange, as the cutscene after shows you casually strolling away once you've gone through that door. Funny.
Also, on my first play through I accidentally shot a gun I'd taken away. Worried about the achievement, I let the cop beat me down and went back to the checkpoint. The flag wasn't reset and I didn't get the achievement on the playthrough. Much anger. A couple days later I forgave the game and ran through it again on Easy in about 2 hours. That time, no problem getting the points. What have I become.
The sense of speed, and the nimble first-person perspective gave me no nausea, another common critique, but I have a pretty iron stomach. Most fun I've had running around since... EverQuest? (Interesting realization.) The effects to enhance the sense of motion are very nice. The visual falling effect is also very creative and fun. The bone crunching sound at the end is both amusing and cringe-inspiring, so misleaping to your death rarely got aggravating. I didn't much like the red/dim-out effect from taking damage as it interfered with the aesthetic, and a bit with the visual info you needed.
The key interface innovation is Runner Vision, which basically involves coloring where you should go red. When sprinting through the concrete jungle, this is a great aide in keeping up the flow. My one complaint about 'runner-vision' is that I wanted more. Show more of possible pathways, and color them permanently. They don't do this to make you discover the optimal route on your own in the advanced content (time attack, which has no runner vision), but I think it weakened the core experience.
Runner Vision led them to create an innovative art style where the majority of surfaces are white, and only one or two other hues are used in most scenes. So, you see lots of orange, and some bright red in the background, but little else. This hyper-clean art style is definitely one of my favorites. With the fantastic music, it all worked to make a great atmosphere. The story seemed mostly atmospheric as well, being a very thin affair revolving around the government having become a police state.
Don't let me make you think the art was mundane, though. Lots of beautiful ideas, well executed. Being stingy with color made it very visually rewarding when a new one was used. I also just love cityscapes. But, the level design itself could have used more variance. There was a little too much of being stuck in vents and other dark, damp places. I started getting a bit of a Half-Life 1 vibe. The pacing was also a bit monotone, too much run-for-your-life strung together with not enough safety beats in between.
Faith, the lady you play as, is a great character. I wonder if the game could have sold more copies with a 'hotter' female on the box, but I'm happy they went with such an nontraditional character design. Skimming through some of the bonus materials, the concepts for many other characters in the game were fantastic as well, particularly the good cop. But, you really don't see him or the others (or yourself) in actual play for more than a few seconds, so it didn't dawn on me how neat he was until I saw the drawing. They used a 2D cartoon style, Samurai Jack-esque, for almost all the cutscenes and story, other than what you hear in your ear while running. I enjoyed the style on it's own, but I don't know if it was a fit, and it didn't bring through enough of the important detail in the character designs.
The combat is attacked in reviews. Like I said, if you're playing it right, you need to actually engage maybe 4 fistfights. The concepts, such as the jump kick being powerful only if you run fast, or just disarming your foe with kung fu at close range, are good. But, it's too hard on Normal. I'm an amazing acrobat, but I can't actually connect with more than one-in-five jump kicks I try? Jump/slide kicks also made me hate the bizarre controls a little. A should be jump, not LB, wtf.
Overall, I was very hyped on the aesthetic, the character, the gameplay, and the tech by the marketing. Great marketing risks a stigma of missing the mark, which I think sticks to this game a bit. But, other than the combat, which was cool, but just too hard, I think the game was great.
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