Genre: 3rd-person shooter
Available Platforms: PC, PS3, 360
Platform I played it on: PC
Developer: Saber Interactive
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
So I hear the cries of “who the fuck cares about Inversion?” and “why is he reviewing this?!”. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you why myself. I just played this game on a whim one day because I heard it was bad and found myself playing all the way through in one sitting for some inexplicable reason. It’s not that the game is especially good in any way, shape or form – it’s basically nothing more than a Gears of War clone – and the story is not that compelling, but I just got sucked straight in and didn’t let up until the game was done. Maybe it’s that weird joy of watching a train wreck happening in slow motion? Or maybe I actually gleaned some kind of sick enjoyment while playing it? Who can tell, really?
The story is actually this game’s “best” point, but it never really goes anywhere. It follows 2 police officers – generic white guy and his vaguely Hispanic sidekick (seriously though, I can’t remember their names and don’t have enough energy to Google it) – as a species of barbaric soldiers with gravity-manipulation technology invades Earth and enslaves humanity to dig underground tunnels for them for unknown reasons. The story is (thankfully) short, but there is a surprisingly good setup and a lot of raised questions, including some existential shit later on. The problem is that the game doesn’t capitalize on this story at all. A lot of the back story is never even explained, such as the origins and motivations of the “Lutadores” (yes, that’s what the enemies are called…). Later on there are other factors and factions thrown into the story as well – again without any explanation – and it just leaves you with massive confusion and, weirdly, disappointment. It has potential and I feel like if this had had a good writer it might have been an actually good, or at least alright, game.
The characters are probably the worst part of the storyline. The main protagonist spends the entire goddamn game crying for his daughter. This is sad in the beginning as you can empathize with him as a father struggling to protect his family in an apocalyptic situation, but this shtick gets old and annoying really fucking quickly. He has no depth or character development beyond finding his daughter and I just hated him so much for this. His sidekick is not much better, being nothing more than a very bad motivational speaker; constantly flip-flopping between being super nihilistic one moment and then keeping the white guy moving forward the next. The only endearing part of him is that he gets as sick of white guy’s daughter issues as the rest of us. The rest of the cast is populated by generic, throwaway soldier/rebel types and a mandatory big villain who exist purely to have other people in the story besides the 4-5 enemy types you mow through during the course of the game.
As mentioned before, this game is an unabashed Gears of War ripoff. It has almost the exact same gameplay and even control scheme as Gears – down to the goddamn Roadie Run. This at least tells you that the gameplay itself is solid for the most part, if making it nothing more than another generic and unimaginative third-person shooter where you spend most of your game time hiding behind waist-high cover. The only way the game keeps things fresh is with a gravity manipulation mechanic. Using the Lutadores’ technology you can manipulate gravity to help you in combat, which basically translates into you can make enemies float up from behind cover or you can smash them into the ground. This mechanic is actually pretty fun to play with (for a while at least), and the game uses it in interesting ways to mess with perspective and switch up levels a little bit. Unfortunately, a lot of the level design consists of the generic rocky brown or ruined building palette, so you know, you win some and lose some.
The game is hard to quantify. I’m not here to tell you whether or not you should play this game. It’s a solid-ish third-person shooter and might be a substitute if you’re sick of Gears of War (I personally never liked Gears anyway). It’s not a good game by any stretch of the imagination, but it is strangely compelling. It also has a multiplayer component, but I don’t know if the community is even alive or if it’s any good. Let’s be honest though, you won’t (and shouldn’t really) this play this game and I just wasted a chunk of my life writing this pointless musing about a game not even I give a fuck about. Life, huh?
Conclusion: 2 missed opportunities out of a possible 5
RANDOM MUSINGS 