Inversion Xbox 360

Released on 13-Jul-2012

• Gravity-bending shooter Inversion coming in June 2012

  Namco Bandai's gravity manipulation-based shooter Inversion has been given a June 2012 release date.

  The ambitious action game from Saber Interactive is coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC and will allow players to tear apart their environments, manipulate debris and travel through zero-G locations.

  Set in the near future, Inversion presents a scenario in which mankind has come under attack from an advanced race of enemies using gravity weapons to wreak havoc upon the world's cities.

  Gamers will need to turn the invaders' weapons against them by manoeuvring large items around to use as mobile cover or hurl huge objects at onrushing foes, as they float through topsy-turvy locales.

  Inversion will feature an in-depth campaign mode, as well as cooperative and competitive multiplayer options.

  The main game will also be supported by a forthcoming mobile spin-off called The Inversion Project, which will introduce players to the core gravity-warping experience.

  Published: 06/03/2012

• Inversion - Preview

  
  

  

  UF-Oh No!

  When it comes to shooters, there's nobody more enjoyable to blow away than evil aliens bent on invading good old Planet Earth. Whether they're lizards or zombies, floating brains or oozing puddles of acid, extra-terrestrials have been perfect cannon-fodder since the early days of the arcades. Inversion, the new action game from Namco Bandai for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, looks likely to continue that fine tradition. They came to our planet to murder and enslave - now it's payback time.

  This time around, you're cast as David Russel, a big city cop who's used to catching crims with his partner Leo Delgado. When the aliens land and start shooting the place up, Russel's caught up in the middle of the chaos. Racing home, he finds his wife has been killed and his daughter is missing. On top of all that, he's chucked into a mysterious sci-fi prison and has to quickly bust himself out again. Looks like it's time for a little revenge.

  
  Ups And Downs

  And it will be revenge of an entirely new kind, as Inversion hinges on some seriously ingenious combat ideas. Don't worry: you'll still be engaging in third-person shooting, which means you'll be dealing out melee attacks as you wield huge guns and race about from one chunk of cover to the next (just like Marcus Fenix in Gears of War), but Russel's also found himself a neat alien artefact called the Gravlink. It sounds like a futuristic mobile phone, but it's actually a super-powered hi-tech glove that allows Russel to mess around with nearby gravity - and this is where Inversion promises to get really entertaining.

  

  The Gravlink's got two main settings, with a Low-G mode allowing you to pull enemies from cover and yank bits of scenery around to clobber people with, or even make impromptu shields. High-G mode, meanwhile, makes everything really heavy. You can fire it up to bring enemies to their knees for just long enough to line up the perfect head-shot, and you can also use it to make some of the game's larger structures collapse - a truly brutal way of showing ET who's boss, and a neat means of opening up new routes through the carnage to boot.

  Watch out, though: alien enemies can also use the Gravlink - they made the things after all - and they're typically pretty smart by the looks of it, too, with decent AI and fearsome strength in numbers. It's enough to ensure that Inversion's fire-fights will be fast and furious and earth-shatteringly loud, so it's good to know that the game packs some brilliant futuristic guns, too.

  Between flying lead, laser bolts, and the ability to pick people up and chuck them about, this is a shooter where each and every encounter allows you to be explosively inventive: don't turn up for a battle unless you're willing to try out new tactics, think quickly when hemmed in, and come up with weird and risky approaches at the drop of a hat. No wonder the developer, an outfit called Saber Interactive, was called in to help Microsoft with Halo: CE Anniversary last year. These guys know their sci-fi combat, and it shows.

  

  Dancing On The Ceiling

  There's more to the game than that, of course, with tricky gravity leading to some really brilliant level locations. There are areas where you'll float about in zero-g, pushing yourself from one piece of rock to the next, and there are some brain-bending moments where gravity switches on the fly, leaving you stuck on the ceiling while you fight enemies who are shooting at you from the walls. Grenades can bounce from one pocket of gravity to another, which can be useful and dangerous in equal parts, and our heads are already hurting at the sort of puzzles Inversion is likely to throw our way during the course of its campaign.

  Chuck in online co-op, some neat separate multiplayer modes, and a thundering soundtrack and you've got an adventure that looks perfect for hours and hours of hectic blasting. With mind-bending set-pieces, brilliant weapons and environments, and a neat story to boot, Inversion may just be the game that turns your world upside down in 2012.

• Inversion Multiplayer Preview

  
  

  

  The shooting genre has become a very crowded one, be it First Person or Third. So for a new title to break out and be noticed you need to have an ace up your sleeve. Inversion, coming to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 has such an ace - the Gravlink, which is used to manipulate the gravity around you.

  In the single player mode, the manipulation is used to take on enemies by lifting them up, slamming them down and solving the odd puzzle. But we're here to talk about the Multiplayer, which we managed to have our first look at last week, and where the Gravity use is toned back and you can only lift opponents. Well, we say "only", but this leaves them suspended for a brief period, which in turn leaves them open to gunfire. We will point out that you're not just floating about waiting for the bullets to fly, you can fire back, and we recommend that you do!

  But before we dove into the multiplayer - and thus before this preview dives into the details - we got a chance to have a quick play with the character editor. The pieces available to edit at the start are slim but as you progress you'll get access to more heads, hairstyles, clothes and so on. Editing doesn't alter the way you'll play, but it will give you a sense of individuality as you fight it out online. And you'll need that individuality, as Inversion can take up to 12 players online. The fights are always fast and furious, and the maps are tailored to be just the right size for this many players. So you're never far away from a fight, but can always back away if you need to catch some air.

  

  Float Like A Butterfly, Sting Like A Bee

  There are two standard online modes, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. To be honest these two modes feel quite familiar, a bit like Gears of War with added gravity-defying stuff. This is by no means a bad thing, but it's the other modes that make Inversion shine, shifting and twisting familiar types of gameplay as much as the gravity itself.

  For starters, there's Hourglass, a simple 'capture the objective'-style mode that sees one team attacking with the other defending. The twist for Hourglass comes when the objective is captured (or not) - the map starts to twist and the players go into a free fall and land on the ceiling. Then it's the other team's turn to attack or defend. This gives each map a two for one feel, especially when the maps are so different. The map(s) that we played on started as a fiery wasteland full of rocks and scaffold for vantage points, but when it flipped over, the map was clean and futuristic with metal flooring and elevated areas for snipers. Gravity Slaughter also sees the map flip upside down once you've built up a large enough killstreak, killing your remaining foes in one brutal move!

  

  Hail To The King

  King of Gravity is a strange and completely chaotic game mode to get to grips with. All 12 players are spread across the map with one player selected as the "King of Gravity" and given the only Gravlink on the map. For the King, it's a constant battle for survival against 11 other players all trying to get hold of your Gravlink. For the other players to score, they need only kill the King (killing fellow players will deduct points). The only way for the King to score is killing all the other players. Not as easy as it sounds, but possibly our favourite of the modes we played. Running for your life whilst earning points by killing foes that are chasing you was a really intense (and fun) battle of survival. Getting one or two kills as King was cause for celebration, but getting a streak going was euphoric.

  The mode we didn't get to play is Survival Mode. This four player co-op mode sees you taking on waves of enemies as you progress through to three new areas on the map that you're fighting in. Each area will contain new enemies for you to defeat. Similar to Horde mode from Gears of War or Firefight from Halo, nothing tests the bonds of friendship more than a survival style mode.

  Inversion features some very fun and truly competitive multiplayer modes, putting twists on familiar gameplay in ways that only this gravity-defying title could. With Inversion launching just before the quieter summer period, this is definitely a game that willkeep you going through the next few months!
  

  Published: 14/05/2012

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