I came to this with the impression that this is a very pretty but rather mediocre shooter. Well, it might be a relief after turning off all those lightswitches.
Certainly looks nice. I was not impressed at first, as I moved through some standard spacebase stuff and a rather ugly exterior with no art design to cover up any weak spots in the textures. However, later planets look great, from a night-time scene with loads of bioluminescence and lumbering lower species to a snow planet with huge ringed planets hanging in the sky and Syd Mead buildings looming in the distance. They certainly know how to present an epic sense of scale. On the other end of the scale, your hub ship has a great lived-in feel; it reminded me of Firefly as I wandered around the small ship, opening hatches to access the vertical design, listening to crew grumbling about missing parts, and finding full ashtrays and half-eaten doughnuts. There's a nice Trek feel to the universe as well, with diplomatic relations between different species. Your pilot, a blue blob in a little mech suit, learning English from a collection on 20th century sitcoms, is especially lovable. It's a shame that the stock meathead-marine banter is generally pretty bad and the female member of your crew dresses like a cheap hooker.
The combat starts off pretty frustrating, as your movement is very slow but you're pitted against acrobatic enemies and a load of your weaponry either has warm-up time or splash damage. I had to put it down to easy to get through the first level. I've picked up a few more weapons now, though, particularly the shotgun. The enemies aren't particularly inspired either - reptile guys or spiders, so far. It's adequate, though. Hopefully it'll pick up.
Some other notes:
The loading times are very long, far longer than Jedi Outcast. I can sit there for up to a minute waiting to reload a quicksave...
It has mantling! It hasn't put it to good use like DOOM 2016 so far, though. It's just an occasional means to climb a slightly bigger box to get some ammo.
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There's already been a siege defense bit, though the gates were NPC-placed for this one. It was fine, but the low player speed combined with the distance between the two gates meant that the NPCs had won most of the fire-fights before I could reach them!
Jedi Outcast had sentry-bot weapons but I don't think I ever actually got round to using one...
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I'm still really enjoying this. The loading times are long enough that I've had to put it on easy, but that's not really hampering my enjoyment. It's almost half walking simulator anyway - the settings are gorgeous and the sense of scale is really well done. They are so clever at using layers of distance to create awe-inspiring backdrops. I'm now curious whether there are any texture mods out there that manage to make it look even nicer.
The acting and story is generally appalling, although the lead guy wakes up when he's having comedic interactions during the levels - pleading with a mute alien to let him through a door, or shouting meat-headed retorts at a snarky scientist.
The siege sequences were pretty cool - it was definitely satisfying to plonk laser posts in position and watch the fence zap to life. But I never felt like I was having that much impact once they started - they tended to be a bit too spread out. I think they're the first ones I've seen so far, though.
Seems I'm on the penultimate level now, which is good to know - much more and the game might outstay its welcome, as beyond the atmospherics and extravagant weapons (which, as is the case so often, the game doesn't encourage the use of), it's a pretty basic shooter.
A favourite moment so far was when I killed a space marine and he fell back into the doorway but his bulky amour stopped him from falling through so he just leaned there:
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I found the last level very irritating! A boss with a one-hit-kill weapon in a small room full of troughs to get caught in, then a very frustrating anti-grav platforming section, a new black-hole weapon thing that you use twice, a bit where the ship starts to rotate like in Jedi Knight for about a minute but it doesn't make any difference, then you get to an escape pod. The end.
As with the first game (and Quake 2 and Flashback etc) it has the old Alien 'hero drifts off into space' ending, with some Alien3 morosity thrown in, as you listen to your crew's final message to you recorded before they sacrificed themselves. It's more interesting than 'space marines save the day' ending, I guess, but the whole thing feels rather deflated. Along with the initially wonderful spaceship hub which, much like Telltale's Sam And Max office, gave very little reward for return visits, the plot winds up as nothing more than a pointless diversion from the actual game.
So, final verdict: solid, enjoyable shooter with gorgeous, atmospheric environments but not much else that stands out.
Rating: Green.
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