I am playing the recent remake of the remake and I have no knowledge of the original game or the initial release of the remake and while I do think the game is decent, the game has some annoyances about it that does sour my experience.
The good stuff are that the guns are satisfying, the art style is interesting, the story is intriguing enough to make you want to know what happens next. So as a shooter that tries to be an action thriller story, it does it's job well enough. Combat is also pleasing with decent damage animations and headshots feel good pull off especially with the crossbow. The remake also added more checkpoints which is a life saver for what I will describe later.
Now the bad, the stealth is horrible, and while the remake added detection arrows to make it more tolerable, enemies notice you way too quickly, and it feels like the stealth is super scripted and you have to follow it to a tea or else every enemy in the base will know were you are. They added detection arrows but the AI behaviours are still the same. Trying to sneak around for more than a minute is almost impossible due to how quickly enemies will know where you are the moment you try doing any experimentation. Kill a guard, and another one will spot the body and you right away. It makes some of the absolutely mandatory stealth missions a pain in the ass, and in the chance in where it's optional, missions were you are supposed to feel like a stealthy badass feels like a game of elminating every guard loudly before they reach the alarm and get a game over. Also, there is no dedicated takedown button or the ability to a guard out with your hands which is a rather odd omission since you can human shield enemies but you can't choke them?
The AI during the action parts is also really bad enemies will run around like idiots, run into your line of fire and barely have any sense of tactics. I normally don't mind bad AI in shooters but here I found it silly since the devs promised more "enhanced" AI.
Boss fights are also terrible and they will never make any sense in a shooter where all you fight are human enemies.
The cliffhanger ending is also bad, but early 00 to mid 00s games were full of them to the point where I find it very amusing. I know there is a comic book but that just gives this game the, "incomplete anime before the manga was ever finished vibes" which I also dislike since it makes the adaptation a trailer for the souce material rather than something that stands on it's own.
Dave Duchovny's voice acting as the titualar character also feels incredibly phoned in, I am not sure it's because he is supposed to be stoic or because he seems so disinterested in the material, it could be both.
There are also issues I encounter like cutscenes before a start of a level not playing, some of the music not playing and the base camp mission where you plant a bug to have me fail no matter what I did so I had to restart the level.
I do enjoy this game but I feel the bad stealth holds the game back from at least a 7, I am not expecting masterclass stealth game design, just something decent enough that feels playable.
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