1. “Very easy” mode isn’t. You’re still expected to single-handedly defeat dozens of armed opponents without really knowing what you’re doing or how things work. Your partners are useless and will never take care of things for you.

2. The game provides no instructions whatsoever. There’s a manual, but what I mean is that every time you enter a new area, it’s like a new mini-game with rules of its own that you have to figure out — while you’re getting shot at. For example, suddenly you’ll have an opponent behind a riot shield, which you’ve never come across before. How are you supposed to defeat him? Bullets? Punching him? A grenade? The game leaves you to figure this out, meaning that your guy will be killed and you’ll have to backtrack several times before you do.

3. The game constantly makes you go back and replay every scene over and over again until you can do it perfectly without getting killed. Did the gamemakers imagine this constituted fun?

4. There is apparently no way to check your guy’s health — or improve it. You’re left guessing how much health you have.

5. The game presents a world but doesn’t really let you explore it in any logical way. This is the adventure you’re going to have, and you’re going to get through it precisely like this. You are going down this alley, and no other ideas will be entertained. You’re supposed to clamber up a street sign, for example, but are not permitted to climb up the side of a garden-variety troop transport?

6. The game asks you to solve puzzles, but the solutions to them are illogical. For example, you need to make your way to a certain temple, and the streets are blocked. Uh, howabout climbing just over that barrel and continuing on our way? That’s my suggestion. No, no. Here’s the solution: clamber up a street sign, shimmy on over to a neighboring building on a clothesline, leap blindly to a neighboring building, climb the crumbling face of the next building, etc. It was so ridiculous. After playing the game for a while you could pretty much ferret out what to do whenever your character became stuck: look for the most preposterously inefficient means of conveyance: there’s the way forward.

7. The game provides no instructions on weaponry. If you’re about to ditch your gun for a lesser one, the game will give you no warning or advice. Does the game seriously expect me to know whether it’s better to have a FAL or an AK-47? How would I know? I guess to kids these days, such knowledge must be second-nature, but they should at least have included some advice in the manual. Nope.

8. The story behind the game is way too complicated to follow. Your guidebook, certainly, is incomprehensible.

9. The game’s battle sequences are preposterous. A few thugs in Nepal, okay. But you’re telling me the bad guys shipped in dozens and dozens of commandos into Nepal just to kill you? How did they get visas for all of them? How did they get the arms into the country? How are they getting supplies under the circumstances? Don’t they realize the hundreds of thousands of dollars this must have cost is not going to be offset by selling Marco Polo’s treasure (if they ever do get it), and they’ll be left with a net debt?

10. The game forces you to accept as “co-adventurers” NPCs that you’d immediately kill, if given your druthers. This was frustrating. Who’s playing this game? Him or me? I say to shoot her and continue on alone!
Rating: 1 / 5

Finally, would love to see this ported to the PC for better controls and better visuals.
Rating: 1 / 5

THE PROBLEM IS I GOT A CORRUPTED COPY. I played the game 3 successive times (once from saved data) and twice from the beginning in hopes of getting past the bad code. But the processor hangs up at the same place each time (Chapter 4 – The Dig). I did a system update to make sure I had the latest PS3 operating system. I played the game on three different difficulty levels thinking that different code being executed may permit me to get past the corrupted code. The disk was untouched — spotless under close inspection — no visible signs of physical abuse. It had to be returned for refund, much to my regret.

This is my 7th or 8th PS3 game ordered from this vendor and is my first bad experience; the frustration and inconvenience plus the chance of repeating the frustration does not make it worth a try at exchange.
Rating: 1 / 5