This is a unique and interesting game that is not getting that much attention, so hopefully you guys check this one out. Please enjoy this in depth review and Discussion of Get Even.
Intro
You play as Black, the head of security for a tech company called FDG. The game starts off with Black infiltrating a mercenary hideout in order to save a girl. As Black makes his way to the girl he takes out guards left and right, careful not to alert anyone. When black finally gets to the girl he finds her strapped to a chair with a bomb around her body. Black rushes to try and remove the bomb but it’s too late.
The bomb goes off and the game fades. Black then wakes up in an asylum with a man known only as Mr Red speaking to him thru a headset that is strapped to Black’s head. Black does not remember anything and Mr Red reveals to Black that the machine is called the Pandora, Mr Red tells black that he is there to find out the truth. He explains that the Pandora lets people relive and re-experience memories. With little to go on, and little choice, black does what mr red says in order to try and remember who the girl was and why he was saving her.
The start of the game is very interesting. It immediately hooks you so that who want to know everything that black wants to know. Everything is surreal and dream like because of the Pandora unit. The asylum is very mysterious and mr red leaves you with more questions than answers. The whole intro of the game perfectly sets up the mystery behind everything.
Gameplay
From the very start of the game you get to control black and experience some of the stuff you will be doing for the majority for the game. The game is primarily and FPS but it has a heavy emphasis on stealth.
Levels are mostly linear so you always have a general idea of where to go. The first level where you go to save the girl is very straight forward since the game is setting up for you. The true gameplay begins when you get to the asylum. The asylum serves almost like a hub, from where you will move from memory to memory. Each memory reveals more and more of the truth and mr red guides you throughout the asylum.
Your 2 main tools in each level are your corner gun and your phone. The phone is used in very interesting ways. It has various apps, that each give you different tools to interact with the world. Your phone is able to scan for evidence, project a UV light, view the world thru thermal imaging, and show you a map of the world.
Camera
Mr red reveals that each memory has extra evidence that can be gathered to further reveal the truth. So you will use your camera to scan evidence in the world. The camera has a light system on it that lights up more lights the closer you get to evidence. 1 light means it is far away, and 4 light means its right around you. Collecting all of the evidence in a level also gets you an extra bit of story in a secret room hidden somewhere on the level. You will find yourself looking for all the evidence so that you can get that secret bit of story and a unique weapon unlock.
The UV app and the thermal app are really interesting. They are primarily used for solving puzzles. The game has some fun and unique puzzles that require heat reading or following trails only visible by the UV light. When the puzzles came up I was surprised because I did not expect the game to have any puzzles. The disappointing thing is that there are not many in the game and I wish there were more since they were so cool. Not everyone likes puzzles but all of the puzzles in the game are fairly easy. So you don’t have to worry about getting stuck.
Corner Gun
The last major app is the map and this one plays into combat. The phone map actually shows you the location of enemy guards so it is super useful when you are trying to be stealthy. Each area can be done without every firing a bullet and your actually encouraged to do so. Mr red actually tells you that when you kill, you are altering the memory and that affects how others see you. You can stealth takedown enemies but unfortunately if you do it counts as a kill. This is very important and I will talk more about it later. If you don’t decide to stealth, you use the corner gun to fight. It’s a unique weapon that is able to fold 90 degrees left or right. This lets you shoot around corners. When you have the gun the phone attaches to it so that you can get the view from the phones camera.
I will be honest when I first saw that the major difference of this fps style game was the corner gun I thought it was a silly gimmick just to say that it was not a straight fps, but I was actually surprised that the gun proved that it was useful because of the control it gave you when dealing with enemies.
Difficulty
See, the game is tough, tougher than I thought, not because it’s hard to pass, but because the game punishes you for bum rushing the enemies. Enemies have good aim and you have very little health. If you just try to run and gun you will get blasted. This is where the corner gun shines. Whenever shit hits the fan you will quickly run to cover and that’s when you start to use the various angles of the gun to take out unsuspecting enemies one by one. The coolest way to do it is by aiming directly up and shooting enemies from that view. It’s so satisfying to take out guards when your stealth gets botched.
Another difficult aspect of this game is the stealth because enemies have good AI. They will spot you from far away if your careless. When enemies get alerted it is hard to shake them loose. In this game you to have to be careful when sneaking and when in combat.
Asylum
The last thing I want to talk about before I move into spoilers is about the asylum. You will spend a lot of time in here, at least a third of the game and it has a lot that it tries to do. The asylum gives the game a sort of horror element to it, but I don’t think that it is done as well as it was intended to. At first it works but as the game goes on it feels more and more disjointed.
While you are in the asylum there are other patients there. All of the patients are very dangerous people and Black is able to interact with them and affect them. Early on the game established that your actions have consequences. Some patients ask you to help them and if you do you have to deal with the consequences later on. I liked this aspect of the game since I was constantly questioning whether I should help someone or not. All I can say is that you will be surprised.
Like I said the asylum tries to add a horror element and I am very conflicted about this because later on in the game you learn the truth about the asylum and when you learn about it, it makes it feel like it’s a gimmick of the game. If feels like the game could exist without the asylum. It is explained why it’s there but the reason just does not seem strong enough. The reason why I am conflicted is because even though the game could exist without the asylum I did feel like it was fun. So even though it was not the strongest explanation I guess I accepted it because it was a fun part of the game.
Music and Sound
The asylum does do a good job at creating some cool memorable and weird moments. This is in large part due to the awesome music in the game and the great sound design. Throughout the whole game the music always comes in at the right times and it varies greatly to fit every scene of the game. Sometimes its creepy, while other times its serious. The good sound design really adds to the moments that make you feel uneasy. Hearing the chant of the puppet man never gets old.
Truth and Ending (SPOILERS)
Here we get into full spoilers and my overall thoughts on the story and the game, SO PLEASE SIP TO THE CONCLUSION IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS. It turns out that Mr. Red is your boss, called Ramsey. The girl is Ramsey’s daughter and he invented the Pandora. He picked up your body after the bomb when off in order to use your memories to find out why his daughter was kidnapped, who did it, and why you were there.
We learn that Ramsey started to grow apart from his family and he was falling for his secretary Rose. Rose wanted to use Ramsey to take his invention and get rich and successful. The problem was that Ramsey would not give up his family. This caused Rose to resent him and she started to devise a plan to take his company. She made a deal with Black, yes the same black you have been playing as, so that they would work together on taking the company. Black gets funding from Ramsey’s rival in order to fund the plan.
The plan initially was to kidnap Ramsey’s daughter and use her for ransom for the Pandora. The plan goes to shit because of a third guy named Jasper. Jasper was hired gun and friend of black that was to eager to strap a bomb onto the daughter. Black warns jasper not to and when he does Black realizes that the plan is getting out of hand so he calls it off. Rose and jasper refuse so black sets out to rescue the daughter himself. Unfortunately, the bomb goes off.
The truth does not stop there. Blacks body is in a coma and he is being used by Ramsey, but it turns out that Ramsey is also dead. The events of the story caused him to lose it. He went to his competitor that funded the mission and he kills him and kills himself. All of the memories you have witnessed are being watched by his daughter that survived. She is using the Pandora on her father’s dead body. Rose lets her do this to get closure and to get permission to further the Pandora project, but rose did not know that by watching the memories of her father she would watch the memories of black and learn the truth.
This is some inception level shit and I really liked the story! So many cool twists and turns. Every time I learned more I was surprised and engaged. The way the sci-fi elements were used was so cool. The game was inspired by movies like Memento and the matrix. The story does suffer from one major problem and that’s due to the way it is told. Since it is all told as memories that jump around, the pacing does feel a bit off and I can see people finishing the game and being a bit confused about what exactly happened. It’s something that I do think hurts the game slightly but, the quality of the story makes up for it a bit.
Ramsey (SPOILERS)
After you learn the truth about the plot against Red(Ramsey) you actually play as him. Red has to brush thru the memories you just played as black and correct them. When you do this, the gameplay actually changes up a bit. Instead of focusing on combat and stealth you get some matrix like hacking abilities. You re run thru condensed versions of the levels and you have the ability to assimilate guards and teleport around the map. I think you could be stealthy on these parts but it would require more patience then I had at the moment. I was so eager to find out what was going on so I just mowed guys down and made my way thru the levels with brute force.
Consequences (SPOILERS)
After playing as Ramsey you learn the final truth that he is dead and you are in the perspective of his daughter. Now the thing is that the game has 2 endings. The endings depend on your choices throughout the game. The main factor is how violent you were thru your play through. It kind of sucks because the only way to get the “good” ending is by fully stealthing the game which is pretty tough. I actually found the ending I got more satisfying then the good ending. It made more sense to me and this is another one of those games where The good ending is not really “good” it’s more about perspective.
In the normal ending, the daughter is horrified by what she has learned and she destroys the Pandora since she thinks no human should have that kind of control over memories. I like this and I agree with her. In the “good” ending she banishes rose and decides to continue her father’s work, I personally think this is really bad and irresponsible. The point of the good ending is that she lets rose go and does not “get even” like everyone else. Because the thing is that her father caused all of the problems. The game actually gets pretty deep when you really think about how everything is not blacks fault, or rose, or the rival ceo, but Ramsey himself. Ramsey causes his own down fall, he is his own worst enemy.
The good thing is that you have an evidence room where it shows all of the memories and this lets you replay them so you can ghost the missions and get the good endings. I don’t think you need to unless you really loved the stealth and want to take on the challenge. I think It’s better to just look up the “good” ending.
Conclusion
This is a hard one, I really had to think about it and let the game sink in. There was so much that I really really liked. I loved the story, the gameplay surprised me and showed me why it was different, and I had a fun time. The thing is that the game is held back by some problems. Even though the story is deep and the writing is good, the pacing throws it off. For me personally I did not mind because it was just such a good payoff. I love this games story and I am glad that I experienced it. The corner gun is fun and the camera is used creatively but I think this is where the game lacks a bit. It needed to take some of its ideas farther to truly stand out. This game is right on the edge of getting their but it just needs a bit more. Overall this is a "Good" game with a great story!
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