"Sightjacking Is A Great Idea, But Makes A Boring Game"

I borrowed this game, and quite frankly I'm glad I didn't shell out money for it. This game is very similar in gameplay to a train spotting simulator in the way that you'll be sitting in one spot for a good deal of time just waiting for the enemy to come along. It's certainly an intriguing game, but there's so much that they could have done better.

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Storyline (4/10)
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As the game progress you see the storyline from several people's point of view. This does help give a more rounded perception of what's going on, at least in theory, however, in practice you end up spending about ten minutes as each person, with everything bouncing around so much it's hard to keep track of the plot. The plot itself is interesting, and probably one of the better survival horror stories, but the way it's presented renders it very difficult to keep track of.

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Gameplay (4/10)
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While the presentation of the storyline itself is a problem, it's not the game's biggest problem. The general gameplay is to hide from the enemies and sneak about in the shadows, and in order to aid you with this, you have the ability to “sightjack”, which enables you to see through another character's eyes. The controls for doing this are also very simple, by just pressing L2 then using the left analog stick to basically search the local area for targets. This is the game's method for avoiding conflict, however, as good as it sounds in theory, it's execution is awful. Since you are not provided a map, you're basically having to tune into several enemies' sights work out their movement patterns and their field of vision and store all this information in your head. You can run/walk through areas, but doing this means you're likely to get spotted and thus need to rely on crouching, which means you move painfully slow.

Your goals for each mission are stated at the beginning of the mission, but for the most part, it's simply; “Get to this position”, without showing or even mentioning where this place is. The effect of this is spending far too long wandering around the level just trying to work out where you're meant to be going whilst trying to avoid the enemies. This means that more often than not, you run aimlessly around the level and just stumble across the exit without really understanding what you've done. Basically, this game is almost impossible to play without a guide telling you explicitly where to go each time, since the game makes no effort to help with this.

While the game is survival horror, and mostly revolves around stealth, there is an attack function, however in many ways it would have been better not to include it. The chances of getting into battle are extremely high since it's hard to keep track of all the enemies by itself, but add that with the overactive fog machine and it's basically inevitable. The fog obscures pretty much all your field of vision meaning you can't even see an enemy approaching before it's too late and you have to fight. The best example of this is being the old man for the first time; whilst equipped with a rifle, after going through a linear tunnel, you have an enemy at the end of it who can start shooting you, and hitting, before you can even see them through the fog. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact you're characters are terrible at fighting and are generally underequipped. Add this to the problem that the enemies respawn after a period of time and can kill in one hit, meaning you have to restart the level, and you're left with a rather dull game.

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Graphics (6/10)
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The graphics aren't the greatest in the world, but they do their job well enough and the cutscenes are done using the in game graphics, rather than cutscenes, which work pretty well. The game's major flaw is the overuse of the fog, which really limits your view and makes everything look incredibly washed out and bland. The character designs are varied, but some of the enemy designs are odd. The game also suffers from using stupidly tiny font for some of it's menus, typically when explaining something, which means you miss out on important information simply because it's too small to read.

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Sounds (5/10)
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The first thing you'll notice sound wise is the voice acting, since everyone has painfully British accents, despite being Japanese, and whilst bearable at times, for the most part it's laughable, which really ruins the atmosphere. The sound effects are generic, with most of the enemies moaning when you sightjack them, which can cause you to jump. There isn't much in the way of background music, which is a good thing, since it allows you to concentrate on the more subtle sounds.

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Lifespan (3/10)
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Unfortunately, this is a game that if you don't get into it in the first 30 minutes, you probably never will. After struggling to get through vague mission after mission just to get to the end of the game, you'll probably never want to play it again either. There isn't much to inspire you to try it again either. The game is incredibly hard, which is where the only lifespan of the game comes from, since you'll have to restart levels multiple times.

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Summary (4/10)
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This game is essentially a deadly version of hide and seek, and it's no exaggeration to say you'll spend most of your time motionless just sightjacking trying to work out where all the enemies are. It is interesting, and the novelty is extremely good, but unfortunately, they didn't manage to implement it into a game that was of any interest. Everything comes second to the sightjacking, which makes this game feel like nothing more than a tech demo. It's nice to play it for the experience, but you'll never want to touch it after that.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10 | Originally Posted: 08/30/07

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