chespace said:
So what's the gameplay like? What are the controls and what's the core mechanic?
The controls are perfect for the most part. Like I said, the only real problems I found are with the tank and when ordering your team mate around, it can be kinda difficult. The targetting kind of locks onto targets if your looking it that sort of direction, so it's not really hard to aim. You'll know when you are aiming at an enemy, since their health bar will pop up above them. You can also hold L1 when locked onto an enemy to strafe whilst locked onto them, but I never really use it. I porbably should.
The main mechanic in fighting probably is ducking and covering. All you do is hold R1 to stay ducked. Shooting is done with Square. A lot of it does revolve around getting behind boxes, ducking and then popping up when the time is right, but saying that does make it sound really repetitive and boring, which really isn't the case. There is a lot more to it, but that's just the kinda of main idea around which the rest of it revolves. The idea is be applied to more difficult situations, for example, there might be enemies shotting from two different sides, and you have to get yourself into a position where your covered from both positions. But that might not be a possibility, so you might ahve to go and get a sniper or something. And one other thing - grenades are your friend in this game
Also, when you get a bit further in, you'll want to watch out for who you're actually fighting. You get some pretty tough guys with shotguns. Basically stay far away from them, otherwise you'll get owned, quick. I don't really do the game justice. There's a beach level at near the start where you have a lot of mines and lasers set that you have dodge. When you get battles with these combined it can be intense (and funny) at times. There ar emines that slowly home in on you in the level. They can be pretty annoying actually at times, since they do keep coming, but if you can manage to use them against the enemy, you get a good laugh. The AI doesn't really strike me as being particulary good or bad. It does everything it needs to, and doesn't really get too annoying, like it often did in the first game. It all just seems to come together well, and is really good fun with everything combined.
The difficulty can be pretty high at times - This is probably a bit of a stupid comparison, but it's reminiscent for me of Resident Evil 4, where you're often near death, and you feel like you're scraping around for anything that might make it the slightest bit easier for you - any health packs in crates lying around, extra ammo or failing that, having to switch to a new weapon altogether, like I often would do have to do in RE4. Beforing going into battle, you really will want to make sure that you've got everything you can that'll make it even the slightest bit easier - 'cause you're gonna need it. It can be unbalanced at times I guess. Often you'll get a supply depot with about 3 or 4 health packs in, and you can't see why. But other times, like I say, you'll be scraping. Often it'll end up with you having to just leg it up to the enemy and hit them - it does a lot of damage, and stops them from being able to shoot you until they get up (at which poin you can hit 'em again
), but you can't really do it when there's more than one around. For me, these are the best bits, because you'll find yourself using everything you can to improve your bleak looking chances.
Possibly the biggest problem for me, which I seemed to have forgotten to mention before, is that barrels are actually really hard to aim at. What's supposed to happen, it that you aim in roughly the right direction, then hit L1, and your player will automatically lock on to it so you can shoot it. But the problem is, that it doesn't just lock onto barrels, it locks onto crates and any other breakable objects, and it can be very difficult to aim at unless your right next to it, in which case, you probably don't want to be doing so. You'll get over it.
