Good features but Camera control/view ruins this game with high frustration.

User Rating: 4.4 | Predator: Concrete Jungle XBOX
By Ychi | Review Date:
Hi, everyone! Getting back to reviewing again - fell behind the last few months. : ) Ok here we go! This game is loaded with Predator features, all the vision modes made famous by the movie, voice mimicry to lure targets, weapons etc. Its all there. So if you expect the see all the well recognized movie weapons - you will have the fun of using them on your Xbox. The story is on the thin side but not bad overall. Graphics are solid but tend to be blurry or grainy. The colors and textures are muted as well so things tend to blend into each other a bit too much in the game. The interface is solid and the selectable controller layouts are helpful as well but it makes no sense why in 2005 it still not possible in games to assign a controller layout that you can specify. The developers made several controller configurations but not a custom one? Hmm. Gameplay is all in 3rd person perspective which is fine but this also greatly hurts the game as well. What hurts? - The camera view. Because the Predator by nature will hop between buildings around corners etc the camera has this huge annoying habit of zooming to the back of the Predators skull. The body of the predator becomes transparent so you can still see but suddenly you lose a sense of scale. No biggie till you try to make a critical jump that does not seem so far away and thump! Your predator buddy just fell 5 stories down and now you have to do that wonderful platform jumping sequence all over again. Now keep doing this and include the headache inducing blurring of camera zooming skull views that leave you disoriented and several hours later you have need for some aspirin. So go first person view only? Nope that only works for vision modes and it keeps you stationary. The irony is that if the game had a better scaled first person mode it would have really worked more smoothly, only using 3rd person views for quick combat and 1st for the crucial parts. Gameplay overall is solid, you do get a sense of power when you use your weapons. Stealth mode works fairly well but you dont get that stealthy killer powerhouse feeling that is normally felt with other games. The stealth runs on a 30 second timer basically so when it runs out you become visible. Also you cant run full out because it increases how easy you are spotted so you can see how having a longer timer would be nice. So for overall action, seeing the Predator in action is good fun, he breaks, bends, snaps, punches etc anyone who gets in his way. Missions are decent and they were nice on most kill missions where the targets keep respawning out of buildings on a regular basis. So gang battles go on indefinitely as they just keep respawning. The map is fairly open but not Grand Theft auto open like maps. You have a general zone you can wander around in so that helps when you attack and evade enemies. Additionally they did add a nice technical/strategy aspect to the game. What I mean is that you have to use the vision modes to pick your targets. Just like in the movie, killing unarmed innocents is a no no - and an honor loss. So different vision modes will give different information. Example, tech vision mode lets you see what surveillance cameras view areas are so you can avoid being spotted, where power grinds are etc. Overall I liked the concept but the format for using them in a full action game does not work that well. If you could camp out from a nice high perch out of range that would be nice and feel right but this game plays a bit too fast before you can get that feeling of stalking prey and finding out intel before you wade into them. The maps in the game need more opportunities to allow for this perching intel gathering time spent but unfortunately they do not come that often. So it becomes trial and error at times when you kill the wrong targets. Darn humans all look the same! : P Lastly, and this is one the always frustrates me, no save points! Nope its total do or die though the entire long mission, so if you need to stop and take a break for awhile you have to restart the whole thing over again. This is a cheesy tactic by developers to make the game last longer than it should. Until enough people complain about it they will just keep using it as a cheap crutch vs adding more content. Final verdict: Rental at best - save your money for the real games out there that deserve your hard earned dollars.

Other Helpful Reviews for Predator: Concrete Jungle

Load Comments (0)