Great wonderful awesome, but so very very easy and short
I'm gonna judge this game based on the singleplayer experience alone, which took me 13 hours. This is done on very hard difficulty and finishing all echoes with 3 stars.
Story: 7
I'm not going in on the details but in all honesty it was bland. Nothing special or inspiring, but it did what it was made for kicking ass. Because that's what this game is about. Not fun and things like that, just kicking ass awesomely. But seriously it wasn't bad but definatly not great.
Gameplay: 10
This is the epitome of awesome. First of all I prefer arcade style FPS over tactical FPS any day so I was very very anxios if it would really live up to my hype. You know what not only did it do what it was ment to do, dear god it was so satisfactory it blew my mind. I have done every skillshot one can possibly think of in this game because it's just that good. The movement is fluent, the skillshots are amazing, the idea behind it comes perfectly together and these are some of the most awesome ways to kill anyone in videogame history. Truly this game gives oldschool gamers the feeling of the old back, it feels fresh, it feels arcade and it feels as if you want to go to an arcade hall and show of your skills!
Graphics: 8
Yeah what I can say, the unreal engine is still one the best engines out there and still shines. Yet I can't help to say that it has dated in time. Specifically when you compare this to many other games of the like, you will see much better graphics. A true 720p native game as we've seen many times before. Still great looking, but definatly dated.
Sound: 10
Ish: "I'm not interested in quantifying how much abuse your ass is built for". This and many other memorable quotes will haunt you after finishing the game. My god it's brilliant, the soundtrack works perfectly in tune with the story and the sequence, the voice acting is great. Overall a perfect score.
Difficulty and length: 3.5
Here is where it all goes downhill. For such damn fine game, it's a damn shame it's so short! I played the game on very hard, while doing almost all skillshots possible in my first run in 8 hours flat. Besides in a game like UT3 you'd want to rip your eyes out during your Insane run, here just a few minor deaths. In fact most of the time I died it was all because of pure arrogance or too much trying of cool skillshots. This really let me down, I mean common very hard should at least challenge me to throw my controller or burst in to anger. Not once did it infuriate me, while that is normally the exact drive I seek in playing on higher difficulties, the challenge needs to at least be there. Echoes is great for leaderboard purpose but just getting 3 stars in all missions is so easy it won't take longer then 5 hours. This is including playing for fun and actually doing your best to get as far as possible on the leaderboard. Absurd...
Overal: 8.5
I loved the game in all its ways. Kicking someone in a cactus while you gag
him with a grenade, tackling someone while shooting his head off, the constant clumsyness of the maincharacter, the contstant fights in between the characters. Everything in perfect balance and great joy. The funfactor of this game is absolutely perfect.
But at the same time, I was totally disappointed by the easy difficulty and the amount of time spent to "finish" the game. I cleared all you can do in singleplayer in 13 hours while still doing almost every single skillshot. It's just so short, given most of todays games are, it was still something I was hoping for. In short why are you reading this, go out and buy this game!!!