Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Just plain fun"

Yes, there are plenty of games out there with much better plots, and yes, there are games out there with sharper graphics, but there are few FPS's that contain better gameplay. The FPS genre is my favorite, and I own most all of them from recent years. You'll read on this site that an FPS is only as good as its guns. Well, this game has some of the coolest, best feeling guns you'll find in a game. The guns just *feel* right. The only shooters that have comparable (if not better) gunplay in my opinion are FEAR and HL2, and I don't play those as much as I do this game. As others have mentioned, there's no streamlined feel to the levels, and frankly, there doesn't need to be. You can just boot it up, use the powermad mods, pick a random level to play, and have tons o' fun. It's the best mindless shooter you'll ever play. The enemies aren't smart, and again, they don't need to be. There is a fantastic variety of enemies that are just cool to view, and the volume of them is enough to keep it challenging. If you just want to sit back and unload a massive amount of grenades from the stake gun, you'll have loads of fun doing it. Oh, and in terms of physics, this game arguably makes the best use of Havok that you'll see to date in a shooter. The way that the bodies go flying and twist and turn also adds to the experience. I absolutely *love* Bioshock, but if you want freezing/shooting of enemies done perfectly, this is your game. As others have mentioned, the levels have a great look and feel to them. As others have also mentioned, the final level, Hell, might be the most unique perspective on the subject you'll ever see. There are other reviewers here who have said that the game is too straightforward, and I can see why they would say that if you're referring to story/intelligent AI/gameplay as a package, but that really is cutting the game short. It was obviously developed for a pure shooting experience, and it succeeds in spades at doing just that. This is the strongest 9.0 that I could give to a game, and if I were given the option to pick only one FPS out of all of them to keep, I'd have a very hard time picking against this one. If you like FPS's, and have not yet given this one a try, you truly are missing out.