A groundbreaking tech demo in need of polish.

The graphics were very good in 2004. I just pulled up a Youtube video and it is still pretty good looking. The gameplay was okay. Not particularly bad, but generally not that fun. This was the first time I started noticing that blockbuster games were getting too expensive to make for companies to worry that much about anything other than graphics.

Often frustrating (normal difficulty) I was surprised at how much fun I had on some levels. The first one I've played being the third, I can see how many features were already in this first opus.

At its best in big open levels that actually make good use of all that pretty draw distance and foliage to give a chance to hide, look around and plan things out; or at least admire the scenery. The best of that is front-loaded into the first third or so. When you're just stomping like gangbusters through industrial facilities with semi-decent shooter controls... eh. A few nice big action set-pieces; also vehicle bits (glider parts were nifty for the time; driving's just plain silly).

i really liked it then the monsters made it worse. then i started liking its cheesy big action movie stuff

The level design in this game is obnoxious. There's always just one door into every arena where the enemy will instantly detect you and hop on you, in many cases making it difficult to get a sense of what exactly you're dealing with. For as big as these levels are, it's also immensely annoying how slow your character is considering how crippling the sprint mechanic is. Your options of approach is also limited as enemies detect you instantly making stealth mostly a non-option.