The city has a real nice atmosphere and tone, the radio stations are great, and the way the light turns everything shades of orange at sunset is just so pretty!
But those freaking missions! It's not bad in the early game, but later on they get almost unfairly hard. Like this one where you need to race a guy and you get a slower car and the cops are chasing after you but not him. Like, what the heck! The only way I found I can stand a chance is to place a faster car somewhere along the road and hope he crashes into it and gives me enough time to switch over and then hope I can make it through the rest of the race without being blindsided by a cop and blown up! Not only is it unfairly hard but you need to sit through 6 loading screens if you want to try again right away. First it loads after you die, then you get in the cab that takes you back to the mission and it loads, you go into the building that the mission is in and it loads, then it loads the first cutscene which I skip, then it loads the second cutscene that I skip, THEN it loads the race. Frick! I think I've spent around 2 hours trying, but I haven't managed to beat it.
That race isn't even the worst of it, because you can usually find a fast car to rig things with pretty quick, but in the obscenely hard combat missions where you get shot to pieces in seconds you need to drive all over town collecting guns, body armor, and getting back to the mission every time you lose! This game was in serious need of a retry mission option.
The cops just suck too! They suicide bomb your car and there just isn't any way to consistently avoid them all, especially the FBI. There was another mission where I had to break a guy out of jail and lose the cops, and the only way I found to do it was to park a car in the pay and spray and drive a freaking tank to the mission. Even then I had to try like 10 times because the suiciding FBI agents would sometimes slow me down enough that a random patrolling officer would be able to run over and yank the door open and bust me before I could build up enough speed.
And the camera sucks!
But those freaking missions! It's not bad in the early game, but later on they get almost unfairly hard. Like this one where you need to race a guy and you get a slower car and the cops are chasing after you but not him. Like, what the heck! The only way I found I can stand a chance is to place a faster car somewhere along the road and hope he crashes into it and gives me enough time to switch over and then hope I can make it through the rest of the race without being blindsided by a cop and blown up! Not only is it unfairly hard but you need to sit through 6 loading screens if you want to try again right away. First it loads after you die, then you get in the cab that takes you back to the mission and it loads, you go into the building that the mission is in and it loads, then it loads the first cutscene which I skip, then it loads the second cutscene that I skip, THEN it loads the race. Frick! I think I've spent around 2 hours trying, but I haven't managed to beat it.
That race isn't even the worst of it, because you can usually find a fast car to rig things with pretty quick, but in the obscenely hard combat missions where you get shot to pieces in seconds you need to drive all over town collecting guns, body armor, and getting back to the mission every time you lose! This game was in serious need of a retry mission option.
The cops just suck too! They suicide bomb your car and there just isn't any way to consistently avoid them all, especially the FBI. There was another mission where I had to break a guy out of jail and lose the cops, and the only way I found to do it was to park a car in the pay and spray and drive a freaking tank to the mission. Even then I had to try like 10 times because the suiciding FBI agents would sometimes slow me down enough that a random patrolling officer would be able to run over and yank the door open and bust me before I could build up enough speed.
And the camera sucks!
