I bought this off the back of the Fallout similarities, of which there are many - post-apocalyptic setting, open world, multiple quests going at any one time, different towns and villages acting as hubs of quest activity - before you even get to everyone mentioning Fallout when they review it. That's likely why I was disappointed when I twigged it wasn't an action RPG but a very basic shooter with some ill-refined elements that don't work as well as the makers probably hoped they would, like the free roaming element countered by there being no incentive to explore as the various game areas only open up at certain points in the story and there's little or nothing to find in the world map area, or the hub sections that are just large enough to need a map to navigate except you don't have a map. The load times are really bugging me, too, especially when I'm trying to get through the races and have to load up one race, wait for up to a minute for that to load, spend a minute or so racing, then spend a minute to reload the hub area to pick the next race, a minute to load that racecourse, spend a minute or so racing, etc - gets to the point that I jack the racing altogether and dread doing any missions lest it lead to another snore-inducing load screen - I thought the humongous install (8gb on PS3) was supposed to speed that shit up?
Oh yeah, despite the install size, texture pop-up is also prevalent and gets annoying, as is the inability to skip dialog, and - as mentioned elsewhere - no investment in your character. A lack of a level system is one thing, but not knowing a single thing about your character or what his motivation is, that's another.
As a basic shooter it works just fine, but all the bells and whistles distract from it being a basic shooter and remind you that there are games that do what this does so much better.
