Inversion preview: War of gravity
In late 2009, Namco Bandai announced a gravity-manipulation FPS from TimeShift developer Saber Interactive. It was to be called Inversion, and it went completely MIA following the announcement. So imagine my surprise when the publisher premiered the first footage of the game this week at its Ignite 2011 event, and then topped that with a hands-on demo.
Inversion's premise remains unchanged all these mysterious months later (even if you don't remember it -- I sure didn't): Ex-cop Davis Russel fights an invading army of aliens -- the "Lutadores" -- with an awesome, gravity-altering gizmo called the Gravlink. In its most powerful state, this device allows players to manipulate objects and enemies as if they were in zero-gravity space: Shoot a car with the Gravlink and it'll float up into the air, at which point the player can lasso the vehicle (still using the Gravlink) and employ it as mobile cover, or simply toss it as an offensive projectile. The shortcoming of the short demo I played, though, is that it didn't feature access to the full capabilities of the Gravlink, as I'd seen in the pre-demo footage.
In the demo, I was only able to toy with smaller objects, like traffic cones and random boxes. Without full access to the Gravlink, the game mostly plays like a straight-up cover-based shooter -- a competent albeit uninspired experience that's highly reminiscent of Gears of War.
Inversion's premise remains unchanged all these mysterious months later (even if you don't remember it -- I sure didn't): Ex-cop Davis Russel fights an invading army of aliens -- the "Lutadores" -- with an awesome, gravity-altering gizmo called the Gravlink. In its most powerful state, this device allows players to manipulate objects and enemies as if they were in zero-gravity space: Shoot a car with the Gravlink and it'll float up into the air, at which point the player can lasso the vehicle (still using the Gravlink) and employ it as mobile cover, or simply toss it as an offensive projectile. The shortcoming of the short demo I played, though, is that it didn't feature access to the full capabilities of the Gravlink, as I'd seen in the pre-demo footage.
In the demo, I was only able to toy with smaller objects, like traffic cones and random boxes. Without full access to the Gravlink, the game mostly plays like a straight-up cover-based shooter -- a competent albeit uninspired experience that's highly reminiscent of Gears of War.
