The sun beat down on a premature summer’s afternoon last Friday as I avoided the suspect yet intimidating life-size figures of some of Tekken’s most notable representatives. These iconic characters (fixed in battle pose) were guarding the entrance to a lavish gaming lounge in Namco Bandai’s head offices in London – a lounge bordered by plasma tellies, Xbox 360’s and of course: full preview codes of Inversion.
I was fortunate enough to attend the event with a fellow journo friend; two grown men attempting to rinse the main storyline co-operatively within the allotted two-hour timeframe. This called for some serious “Bro-Op” (a phrase which I’d heard more than once that afternoon) and thanks to the well-considered pace of the game we’d actually managed to get through a hefty chunk of gameplay before the day was up!
The overall impression we’d both got was that the game was a mixed bag of nuts – some original, unique and well-executed features would often put a smile on our faces but some shameful dialogue and bizarre design choices would then “invert” (excuse the pun) those smiles into cold frowns of dismay. You assume the roles of Davis Russel, a 28-year-old firecracker of a cop, and his neighbour Leo Delgado (if played in Co-Op) – two men on a journey to rid the world of an invading gravity-bending race of aliens named the Lutadore whilst simultaneously trying to find Russel’s missing daughter. It’s a simple plot made enticing by the promise of the unique, disorientating gravity-twisting game mechanic that’s introduced to you relatively early in the game. Whilst it’s always exciting to grav-shift somebody (and even more exhilarating to be shifted by somebody else) the whole mechanic seems a little unambitious in comparison to what I expected. There are various entertaining moments throughout the game where the map will completely shift perspective (think playing as the Alien in the latest Alien games) but for the majority of the first few hours of play you’ll be repetitively lifting the Lutadore into the sky before running up and meleeing them (a sure-fire kill tactic for the games’ multiplayer, equivalent to the Gears 2 “punch and blast” technique).
And that neatly segways into my next point, the unashamedly identical set-up Inversion has to the Gears of War franchise. Testosterone-fuelled tank-necked Marines aside, the roadie-run, lancer-weaponry and chest-high walls are all available here, poorly replicated in the shadow of Epic’s polish. For example, when aiming from cover Russel has a tendency to never angle his body properly. It’s hard to explain without playing it, but rather than being able to lean around cover to fire left and right, Russel’s body can only aim over – meaning that if a decorative statue is resting on your cover you’ll have to shoot it to pieces before being able to aim at the enemies in the distance. “Bleeding out” also lends a great deal to the Gears series, although rather than being able to crawl to your partner before death you just have to sit still and wait for a pat on the back. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I’m not sure Epic would be quite that impressed by this one.
Graphically, the game looks fantastic. It has that Namco-distinctive Japenese vibe to it, despite being developed by New Jersey/St Petersburg based Saber Interactive. Destructible environments are as satisfying as ever here, where heavy artillery can pummel foundations of buildings with gratifying ease – wiping out waves upon waves of Lutadore enemies. There are also plenty of moments throughout the game where you’ll find a great deal of things happening all at once, and the game handles these extremely well. One particular event that really sticks out in my mind was during one of the first areas in the game, where Russel and Delgado attempt to escape a block of flats during an earthquake. It’s a super immersive, highly cinematic visual feast and definitely compelled me to propel myself deeper into the admittedly non-existent narrative. I say non-existent, as for the most part you’ll find yourself feeling little emotional connection to the games’ protagonists and their plight. Trying to care for the daughter you’ve not really seen or know anything about is hard, especially when your protagonist asks anyone and everyone in the war-ravaged world “hey have you seen a girl? About yay high?” and expects them to have a clue.
This leads me onto my final negative point about the game, for all the good it achieves (particularly during some of the more hectic moments, including the addictive yet disorientating multiplayer) it punishes itself with some lazy, uninspired and downright cheesy dialogue. I kid you not; it takes the Family Guy joke about “saying the title of the movie during the movie” thing seriously: “Because of the war, my whole life has been inverted”. Shameful. Other notable mentions are “I think if we move, they’ll shoot us” and “Look at the world, there’s nothing left.” I”ll leave it up to you to form your own opinions about that.
Overall though, Inverted is an above-average game which will definitely satisfy a large proportion of online gamers. The multiplayer is excellent and the single-player is entertaining enough, although trying to complete the game will probably take some dedication due to its repetitious nature. Whilst it’s too early to call at this point, I was relatively impressed by what I saw and look forward to reviewing the game in full pending its release in June.
One Comment