I aM SmoUgH

This will be a long review: The voice acting is strange in and of itself, with everyone having American accents while being in Russia, but it can be overlooked. But the constant audio issues and writing cannot. Dialogue seems too fast in some sections, where one character is partway through a question and then suddenly the other person is answering. A lot of the dialogue itself is muddy at best and flat out annoying/long winded at worst. The constant self references to having to find keys or how "complicated" the doors are, gets old very quick. It's like they're patting themselves on the back for self referential humor. I am also so sick of hearing the Major yell, "Crispy critters". The graphics seem to pretty good, no real complaints there minus glitches here and there. Robot designs are interesting for the most part, but start to get stale later on as it becomes the same old same old with the occasional boss to shake things up. The gameplay itself is wonky. Towards the beginning, the enemies are annoying, but not too unreasonable. Once you've collected enough gear, regular enemies become far too easy with bosses feeling too fast for how slow the Major is. This by itself can make combat rather tedious. You can also become stun locked quite easily, which makes the telekinesis perk your friend for most situations and honestly seems a bit broken. It's one "saving grace" is that it's not that useful on bosses, which is fair. The looting mechanic gets old though, as you have to individually swipe across each lootable object to get the items which is fine for a chest, but tedious when you come up a large section of filing cabinets. Best part is that it can be difficult to get the items as the looting mechanic isn't perfect by any means. The whole "corpse talking" thing feels hollow as there's nothing really to do with it. It's interesting the first time, but quickly became something that I started to skip over since it never really went anywhere and felt like fluff. This game also feels somewhat confused on what it wants to be with regards to open world vs linear path. Most story areas are a set path with small sections you can explore and then WHAM open world section and oh btw, here's a car. It's like they weren't quite committed to either and created a hybrid between say, far cry and bioshock. The story itself feels like it's in a constant state of trying to one up itself with twists and turns. This isnt always bad, but it often feels more aggravating than captivating and to me, not worth the pay off with some sections just feeling like fluff pieces to extend the game. Tldr, it tries to be bioshock and fails. It's fine to scratch that bioshock itch in a relatively new and shinier way, but you'd be better off just playing bioshock. Overall not the worst game I've played, but I wouldn't say it's worth the new gen price tag of $70. If you have access to gamepass (as I did) and have any interest, it'd be worth it to try it there first or to just wait for a sale.