This game is a mess, a sloppy debut that should get at least a pat on the back for trying to make a good game.
Let's start with the begining. Installed the game and it welcomed me with a generic, boring and brief menu that's striped by many utilities. For example, you don't get to use gamepads. No! No, you don't! Controls are brief and few of them so expect what you'll be havin' to expect. Graphic settings are also the most common but lack the adjustments for gamma, luminosity and/or contrast, just the basics. Audio menu is the same: volume, speakers settings and also subtitles. And don't forget mouse options: invert and sensitivity. Also, there's no multiplayer. At first i thought it's gonna be a coop for some reason, but i couldn't find nothing of sorts. That's kinda all. Oh, and there's the forgetable music, which is good and creates a good premise over the monotonous menu. If your speakers would be off, you wouldn't miss anything.
After that promising start, let's begin the campaign. You can choose from three difficulty options: easy, medium or hard. And then a cinematic begins, something about pirates and the UN and some kind of shadow ops something, something. The narator sounds as bad as a bad translation from a foreign language. I know the developers are german, but still... okay, maybe they should be forgiven for the voice-overs, only because the rest of the sound makes for a great atmosphere. Ambient sounds create realistic setting along with great music and the sound is sometimes very surprising, although somehow repetitive. Guns sound like popcorn and engines sound like a coffee grinder, even the helicopters. But explosions sound awesome and look the same.
Shadows look ugly in medium and highest graphic settings. Ugliest shadows i've seen, they look like had been spayed with a paintgun by an amateur. Also there are lots of glitches right from the first ingame cutscene. Textures look ok, you can see the touch of physx engine, but with random fishy tear-ups. Characters are very stiff and the main protagonist is too close to the camera, at first. First mission: go suit up. And there's the interiors. The contrast between darker and brighter locations go too far and trim from realism, maybe to hide those rough edges. And here's the letdown from not be able to change luminosity settings. Characters sound awful ingame and in cutscenes, so not believable. Once you get hold of the guns, the hud becomes very crowded. While moving equiped with gear, you run and can't sprint or walk, but the good part is that the guy moves further from the camera while on move. Also you can't jump or vault over obstacles. The night vsion is awesome, i'd play the whole game in night vision, but it doesn't last very long and is useless by daylight. At first, this game gives the sensation that it's an open-ended game, but it isn't, it's full of obstruction that don't make sense. Somehow, this game reminds me of FarCry 2 (but without the open world) and Soldier of Fortune Payback. It's something about the setting.
Cover system is intuitive and you get the hang of it very quickly, but it's flawed. In some cases, as easy as you get behind some covers, that easy you get out without notice. Reminds me of the one Quantum of Solace had. You try to nudge a little bit so you can aim and you find yourself exposed out of the cover. And i think the AI sences the flawed cover system and avoids it. Although it's a very dumb AI. Highly trained soldiers, terrorists or pirates, enemies or allies, they don't know how to get behind cover. They just hide, duck or come out in the open just waiting to get shot. And they do get shot... The only thing that changes with higher difficulty is that the main character gets lower it points, enemies get higher hit points and they do shoot better, but they're still dumb. But most of the time, the cover system does a good job and the AI can be quite a challenge.
Sometimes you'll find yourself immersed in the action, but you get tired quickly. It's a start for the people at Black Lion. Hopefuly they get the gamers feedback and release an update. Here's hoping for their next title and also that they learn from this mistake.