Excellent weapons, decent graphics and a decent storyline make this game something that any FPS fan should look into
There are no plot twists and the overall story is still based on the fact that you need to save the world; however the story is spun in a clever way. You start out basically as a grunt soldier and you fight along side your comrades to try and defend your base that has come under attack. At the end of the battle you become wounded and you get to play part in becoming something more. As you're rushed to the emergency room on the gurney you hear everything everyone is talking about and you can move your head around to view the surroundings....but you're pretty much helpless. Eventually, when you're brought back, you come to find out your body is essentially a fancy version of RoboCop.
You grow to learn and understand your new powers as the story moves on. You can basically use super-human type powers to help overcome your obstacles and enemies. You might choose to use your reflex ability, your ballistic shielding or 1 of your other 3 powers you learn. These abilities can help make or break your intense battle situations. All these abilities have different lengths they last, you'll just have to experiment a little to see which ones last longer then the others.
On top of all this, you also come across a slew of weapons to use at your disposal. You get a pistol, rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, mine launcher and several other guns. All weapons have a secondary fire; for example on the pistol: Your secondary fire is a small rocket - this small rocket costs a full clip to use. Or your shotgun - the secondary fire creates sticky bombs and to use this, it costs 4 out of the 8 rounds you hold in your shotgun. All secondary firing uses the weapons main ammo. Most weapons require extra ammo to work and some don't, like the rocket launchers secondary fire.
One of my favorite things to do is to fire up the reflex ability and run around and melee the hell out of a large group of enemies. Your melee attack consists nothing more then just you swinging your fist, but it works quite well. You can walk up behind enemies that haven't spotted you and melee the crap out of them if you want.
The graphics are fairly good and the game seems to run really well on my computer, with every option maxed out. I don't experience any stutters or slowdowns. My only concern is the random crashes that occur out of the blue. I could be running down a hallway or I could be shooting up enemies; when all of a sudden the game crashes. I didn't mind if this happened after I had just saved my game, but I usually wasn't that lucky and there were a few spots I had to continually replay through because the game would crash. One other grip I have about the graphics is that everything was sort of made to look cartoon-ish and the look really isn't to my liking, but I do have to say that the atmosphere helps make the cartoon-ish graphics more appealing then they really are.
Saving games can be a bit of a challenge at times. This isn't like most games where you can save at any spot in the game just by hitting the "Quick Save" key. You have to find "Save Rooms" - think of them as safe rooms. There are generally 2-3 in every level, but you have to keep your eyes peeled open, otherwise you might just walk right by them and not even notice.
The cut scenes were a little sketchy at times, but nothing that didn't correct itself as the scene progressed. Sometimes the images would blur (there are some places where the screen should appear blurry or images blur) when I felt they shouldn't be.
The AI lacks when you compare this game to others out on the market. Halo (the first Halo) has better AI then this game, and I wasn't impressed with Halo's AI. The enemies here use what they have, but they lack the ability to make you feel like you're actually taking on real live people. Granted at times they might find cover, but these are far and few between. Generally the enemies, when out in the open, do just that....stay out in the open and let you fire upon them. The way the game makes up for its lack in AI, is how at many points throughout the game the enemies try to swarm you, forcing you to make use of your arsenal to its fullest potential.
Overall, the AI needs an overhaul and some of the cut scenes need to flow better. The graphics are pretty good and no one should really be able to complain to much about them, although I wouldn't mind if the graphics lost some of its cartoon-ish feeling and went a bit more realistic. This game should at least be given a chance by any hardcore FPS fan that wants to experience something a little different.