A simple review from me, this is my first so i will do my best. Spoiler Warning!
Not as snappy as the game is, i really enjoyed playing through this, it gave me the want to carry on through the game unlike a lot of recent games i have come to purchase recently.
The story is pretty simple, In 2029, an asteroid hits Earth leaving very few survivors. Settlements are formed throughout the wasteland that are separate gangs and organisations which are formed by mutants and bandits.
The main guy Nicholas Raine in which you have the pleasure of controlling as the main protagonist emerges into this setting in year 2135, 106 years after being put into stasis inside an underground shelter called an Ark.
He is basically a super solider, he is formed of some kind of robotic elements and human elements.
Starting off in the game, you are awoken from your stasis chamber, and you are set free into the wasteland.
Along your way through the game, you will encounter small settlements, one being more astonishing than the next, with some truly great attention to detail.
You can play mini games with a deck of cards that you may purchase from the respective people, you can also play a dice game which actually had me addicted for around 30 mins raking in some quick cash.
There are plenty of side quests, there is a pin board with jobs, a courier service, and the odd job from locals, all of which are fun to go through.
There is also racing and strategy combat driving (not sure of the name for this).
The races are basically what you would expect from such a game, you have a few no weapon races, then you also get weapon races, some of these are restricted like "Minigun" or "Rocket", now the most interesting is the strategy races, this race type uses a point and flag system, this is pretty easy to grasp after 1 or 2 tries, you simply have to get 50 points to win in this mode.
You do this by driving through bright blue beams of light, sounds simple? later on in the game the races become harder, this mode really will test you if you let it, rockets and minigun fire will smash you about by other cars who are after those points.
Driving around the wasteland is what it sounds like, it however has it's fun times, and quite a lot of them too.
If any of you out there like to get your achievements (PSN/ Xbox Live/ Steam) then driving around for you will be much more rewarding and entertaining.
You have 18 jumps which have a hovering spy device by the authority organisation.
You will have to take down all 18 of these spread across the entire wasteland in order to unlock an achievement, you do this by driving your vehicle in the correct direction with appropriate speed, it could not sound any simpler, but with the diverse wasteland and the tricky spots id decided to place them, it is a challenge and it is a lot of fun, but if you are not too careful, you can seriously damage your vehicle which will cost you to repair, or if you let it get too far out of control, end up dead.
You will also get challenged along your casual way through the wasteland by enemies in vehicles, you can choose to take them on or drive fast and swiftly enough to try and avoid them, however there is prizes to be had for killing these enemies from the person behind the bar at each of the 2 main settlements.
The main quests are fun to play, it is reminiscent of older titles from id software such as Doom, you will have to fight against hordes of varying mutated beasts varying in size and strength, you will also fight against bandits and authority soldiers.
The gun play is fantastic, weapons feel and sound like weapons, dangerous ones at that with a manly beard, enemies also react from the damage visually, you will see them holding themselves from punishment, you will also witness decapitation of limbs and gore.
Enemies are smart, you will see mutants dodging your fire, clinging to walls and ceilings, ducking and diving running at you with ferocious violence.
Soldiers and bandits will stack up, and also take cover, and try to flank you with any means necessary.
All enemies will back off if they know they are in grave danger, they fall back in hope to lure you into a small ambush.
Bigger enemies that take a lot to put down will come at you like a nemesis.
Visually this game is stunning, and id have done a fantastic job with their id tech 5 engine.
I played this on PC with an i5 2500k, 8GB of 1600mhz DDR3 and a GeForce GTX 480 at 2560x1440 with 4xMSAA.
The game ran smooth at 60FPS with very few issues.
Now this game certainly is not perfect, textures do pop in sometimes, but this is not a normal occurrence (at least for me) and was rather rare. The vehicle sounds can sometimes stop working when loading your game when in a vehicle, but this is a small problem as getting out of your vehicle, then back into it fixes it.
Saves are a pain, if you die whilst inside a mission, and failed to manually save the game from the pause menu, you will be required to start from the beginning again.
This game may not be for everyone, i enjoyed similar games like Borderlands and Fallout 3, for anyone who enjoys those games, you may well enjoy this title too.
I give this game a 9/10 purely for it's brilliant game play and fitting visuals, sadly a mark had to be taken from it as some things are not so good.
Here are some images i have taken to show off this titles visual finesse.
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