An emotional game in many ways...
The game shows you Jack's physical and also mental condition, both through sound and visual techniques. These are cleverly done in a way that means there's no HUD-type display of any kind, just what Jack sees.
The action takes you to several locations, which become increasingly alien in nature.
The first part essentially requires stealth, then you acquire weapons and the shooting starts - even then though there's a fair bit of stealth involved and you occasionally find yourself back to scratch re weapons. Most of the guns are quite satisfying, and Jack's movement is reasonably slicklly handled for a game that isn't an out-and-out FPS.
You also have an inventory to examine Jack's case files and items, and treat his injuries.
The puzzles use logic and are normally satisfying, without being too obscure.
As there are save points rather than a save-when-you-want system, the action sequences involve metaphorically jumping through a series of hoops, either puzzles, or fight-related, to get to the next save point. Although I don't normally like save-points in FPS, in this adventure/FPS hybrid game it worked well at times – persistence paid off, and it actually added to the suspense of the game at times, knowing that if I failed/was killed I'd have to go back and do it all again!
The plot, use of emotional triggers and general game effects make this a genuinely creepy experience, and it's a testimony to this that I stuck with the game despite its faults.
The game's general atmosphere was sufficiently creepy that, wondering around a town full of creepy people who were not-quite-zombies, i actually jumped when i turned around to find one of them had happened to walk up behind me!
In terms of the overall quality of graphics, the GS review criticises this , but i have to say i don't see the problem - they're more than adequate to involve you with what's going on and create genuine tension. I'm surprised the GS review is so negative about them.
So now to those faults: there were three big problems I encountered with the game, two of them design faults, the other a bug-related issue.
First of all the game uses cut scenes - this is fine as far as it goes - as we all know they can introduce a new part of the game and add suspense and impact. But once you've seen a cutscene you don't need to see it every time – unfortunately there was no way of skipping through them, and without the ability to save just after, you end up having to sit through a sometimes lengthy scene which immediately gives way to a dangerous situation – so you inevitably die a few times, and it's back to the cutscene. This got really annoying.
The second was the distribution of save points. At times there were two almost on top of each other, at other times you had to get through two or more highly complicated action sequences before being able to save – this got really aggravating at times also.
A combination of these first two issues led to me not completing the final escape sequence of the game, as I just got too bored with being killed every time.
Lastly, I encountered (from about 2/3rds of the way through) a big problem with the inventory – it slowed down to a snail's pace, despite the rest of the game running perfectly. This too became very aggravating, as there are times when you have to check the inventory quite frequently. I should point out that when I googled this problem, as well as checking with other Gamespot users, no-one seemed to have encountered it, so I may just have been unlucky.
All of this damaged the suspense of the game, and as others point out there were times that much of the carefully-created atmosphere was lost by it.
I ought to admit I haven't played many first-person adventure games - one other game I have played is Sherlock Holmes: The awakened. In most ways I would rate this game above that one - it's longer and more immersive, not least because in the SH game you swap characters occasionally
So should you play it? Well, it depends on how patient you are I think. I must say I'm glad I persevered, not least because it revealed to me almost Zen-like quantities of patience of which I was not previously aware. For the game's good qualities, I'd have awarded a 9, but the drawbacks have really damaged that score.
I would say play it, but play on the easiest level (I chose the next one up – you only get offered the two first time round, though I really wonder how many people would play this twice) and prepare to be patient!