i think something got fucked up
goddammit, waited two hours for that shit
There are two demos. A short one and an extended one. I was at the front of the line when I overheard someone ask how long the demo was. One of the guys at the booth answered thirty minutes, but that the "lucky" ones get to play a 45-minute version. It might be randomized when they boot up the demo.
Unfortunately, I played the shortened version where you start on the second floor of a room.
The graphics are great. Everything looks cohesive, the body and facial animations are well done, and the IQ is superb. The weapon effects from smoke, dust, and debris are fantastic. Material surfaces look amazing and the reflections appear subtle and realistic.
Movement and aiming feels weighty. I'd say it's a cross between TLOU and Gears. The recoil, weapon sounds, and enemy hit reactions makes the shooting feel extremely satisfying. Enemies go down with just the right amount of bullets. They didn't feel too long or too short to take out.
I'm the kind of guy who runs and guns with hip fire in Uncharted, so that's how I tried to play the demo. I'm glad to say that rushing guns blazing is a very viable playstyle.
At the start, I'm hiding behind a rail on the second floor with a sniper rifle There are enemies below already shooting at me. I popped above cover and sniped a couple of them in the head.
I couldn't stay scoped for very long since enemy fire reduced my health quickly. I would peek over cover (by holding up on the analog stick while in cover) before going into my scope to set up my shot.
I lost sight of the enemies a lot thanks to a combination of the up close camera and their mobility. The enemies moved a lot, going from cover to cover. If I missed a shot, I had to reload, and by the time I looked through my scope again, the enemy would have already changed positions.
I got tired of sniping and decided to get up close and personal with the pistol. I went downstairs and out into the floor. Gunfire came at me from angles I couldn't see so I hid under a stairway on the main floor. There was an enemy hiding behind a wood sign. I managed to kill him by shooting through it.
The enemies seemed hesitant to move out of cover, but I managed to cheese some kills by sniping exposed limbs.
While I was hiding under the stairway, an enemy actually took up position in the same room I went through when I went downstairs. I put some fire in his direction and waited for him to pop his head out behind the wall.
After five seconds, I rushed in to try and take him out with a melee, but he was no longer there. He had moved up the stairs where I started the demo. I followed him up and took him out with a melee takedown.
When I cleared out the area, I replaced my sniper rifle with an automatic rifle. I picked up a burst fire pistol but dropped it since I prefer the single shot.
In the next area, I tried out the slo mo auto aim mode (forgot the name of it) and took out three guys. I'm not sure how it works exactly. I flicked the right analog stick and it would snap on to the enemy, and then smaller circles would pop up on their body to show where my bullets would land. I wasn't sure how to aim it after locking onto a body.
Play cutscene and I'm back in control. There's a gate and I open it with a small minigame where I click the left and right analog sticks to stop a ball bouncing up and down in a tube. I pick up a rifle with the air blast as the secondary.
The kitchen was my favorite part of the demo because of the ways you can sneak up on enemies. I ran in, hip firing at enemies across the counter and took cover when I took up too much damage. I saw an enemy hiding behind a corner. I tried to flank, moving along the counter, rounded the counter, and ran up along the wall and pressed Triangle for the takedown.
You're not invulnerable during these animations (clearly evident in the keynote demonstration) so it's something you want to do only when no one else is shooting at you. My screen went red so I hid behind a wall. The enemies that were shooting at me moved back behind a wall and fired through a small slot. There were two enemies I could see through the slot. One was underneath, blind firing so I could only see his hands, and the other was farther back and shooting at me out in the open.
I killed them and cleared out everybody in the kitchen by chasing them, hip firing my rifle, and when I got close, I finished them with a takedown. The enemies ran from me a lot, so I'm surprised by how they reacted.
To sum up my impressions: I thought the game looked okay before but it's definitely on my radar now. The cutscenes aren't too intrusive and they appear paced and interwoven into the gameplay appropriately. The controls are solid and weighty, and the combat scenarios provide a certain level of dynamism that you don't see in most videos because the player is always hiding behind cover. Secondary fire options provides variety and melee takedowns give a great cinematic flourish during firefights -- if you're not exposed, that is.
It doesn't present any amazing innovations in the third-person genre, but Ready at Dawn, for me, have always been masters of refinement. The mechanics aren't original, but they're tried and true and feel great.
