Half of what I was expecting.
It's okay.
In an effort to affect structure let's start from somewhere. Graphically it's actually pretty good, especially for such an old game. Then again I don't wade hip-deep in HD everyday so perhaps my word on graphics isn't to be trusted. Personally though, solid to look at.
Controls are interesting. In general they work well with the context-senstive basic attack (slashing up close, shooting from distance, fairly simple) lending itself to amazingly button-mashy play. But I didn't mind that, it was satisfying stuff. The sub weapons tended to be a little...useless, I felt. But that's me.
The camera is a **** At times, at least. It sounds obvious but some times you don't notice it but when it goes wandering around and looking at things you don't really care about it becomes somewhat irritating. Speaking of irritating ****es the main character is horrible. Whiny little kid, he is, with a strange aversion to killing but little qualms about the amazing levels of property damage he dishes out. But seriously, trying to reconcile the very nice flying robot with the daft-git inside of it is difficult. Hence why I skipped through all cut-scenes. You don't miss anything, as missing anything would require there to be something to miss. As I saw, there wasn't anything.
What else. Oh yes. The game is short. Amazingly short. I mean shockingly short. I finished the thing in just over three hours. I wasn't even trying. This is a little unsatisfying I was hoping for a little more but hell it's a gift so what can you do?
Meh, in summary it's a good game, just very short and rather insipid. But it does speedy, flying robot battle solidly enough and that's sort of the whole point. And nowadays it's dirt cheap, so hell.