Inversion Review

So I have decided to revive this blog of mine that I completely forgot about and will use it to review some video games. They won't necessarily be reviews of the latest games, but just games that I have recently played. So first up is Inversion, a game I felt was overlooked this year. For those who don't know, Inversion is a 3rd person cover-based shooter which gives the player the ability to manipulate gravity, adding a whole new play style to the game. I'll go into more detail below, as I will split my review up into different categories that I believe will cover the game in its entirety.

Gameplay

 The majority of the gameplay is pretty bog standard; just go from cover to cover, blasting anything that opposes you with the, quite frankly, pitiful number of weapons available to you. Nearly everything in the game is destructible, and this encourages the player to keep moving from cover to cover under heavy fire. However, the main selling point of this game is your characters use of the Gravlink, a device that allows you to fire a blast of anti-gravity in a certain area. This can be used to force enemies to float out of cover, or to pick up objects such as cars and barrels to hurl at your foes. It's a very nice concept, but very rarely does it ever come in handy, other than when the game forces you to use it to move obstacles out of your path. The AI isn't very smart and will constantly pop out to take shots at you even on the hardest difficulty, making one of the main features of the Gravlink completely pointless. The Gravlink doesn't even immobilise enemies when they've been struck by it, it just seems to give them more of a height advantage against you. The Gravlink gets upgraded and becomes a much more viable tool against your enemies later on, but by then, I had just gotten so used to relying on your guns, that I was completely forgetting about my ability to hurtle cars and leave my enemies in a bloody mess. Gravity control was an excellent idea, but its usage in the game is not.

Story

I will keep this spoiler free. The story definitely isn't the reason most people will be picking this game up for, but it still manages to be a somewhat engaging experience. In short, humanity is devastated by alien beings known as the 'Lutadores' and within 30 days, the once peaceful 'Vanguard City' is nothing more than a shell of its former self, as huge drills have destroyed everything in their path, and entire buildings have been caught in anti-gravity fields. You play as Davis Russel, a police officer who is on a mission to find his now missing daughter. You are accompanied by Leo Delgado, another police officer who was Davis's partner before the Lutadore invasion. The story definitely isn't the worst in these type of games, but there are definitely better. There was enough in it to keep me playing up to the conclusion, so that's definitely something.

Sound and Visual

I will keep this short because there really isn't much to say. When it comes to Inversion, Saber Interactive pretty much wrote the book for 'bland'. There is absolutely nothing, from the seemingly non-existent music scores to the generic and dated map design that will stay with me. Even the sections where you change vectors and are suddenly fighting hordes of Lutadores on the side of a building felt exactly the same as if you were on the floor. Everything is just the same dull, grey landscape and I feel they really dropped the ball here.


Ok, that's it for my review of Inversion. I was going to do a review on the Multiplayer segment, but I was unable to find a single game, due to the poor sales. All I can tell you on that side is from what I've read on forums and whatnot, and that is that it is pretty solid. I would like to check it out myself, but unfortunately that is impossible.

The Verdict: It's worth picking up if you can get it cheap, which shouldn't be too difficult now. It's fun enough to keep playing and if you manage to get some people together for Multiplayer, then there's even more fun to be had.

My score: 6.5/10

Thanks for reading. This is my first ever game review, and constructive criticism is welcome and will be noted for next time.

Take care!