At first glance, Saber Interactive's Inversion seems like another entrant in the rapidly ballooning list of cover-based shooter titles routinely spit out by the industry. It's perfect fodder for the ever-popular "add one special feature to standard shooter recipe" system that many developers latch onto for added shelf life. Yes, one of Inversion's weapons is a machine gun with a ridiculously long bayonet, and yes, mastering the dive-roll-shotgun-blast combo still nets you easy kills like in a certain similar game.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":688482,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"B"}']But this time around, the gimmick gets a little Newtonian with the ability to manipulate gravity. Coupled with a mode named Hourglass, Inversion's multiplayer definitely banks on this interesting to help it compete compete with the big guns.
Hourglass pits two teams of four players in a war of dominance over a single control point. It's classic red vs. blue stuff so far, but each team's grasp of gravity offers various ways of leveraging momentum on the battlefield. Using a device called the Gravlink, the blue team can weaken pockets of gravity and launch stray objects or even sending their foes tumbling helplessly in the air like the fattest clay pigeon. The red team compacts gravity into a dense blast of energy that sends enemies sprawling to the ground for a few moments. As a result of these new toys, the relatively small teams typically split up into two-man kill-squads: one for the gravity windup and the other for the heavy caliber punch.
The actual map joins the fun as well. You don't return to your spawn for another round after a control point capture. Instead, a warning klaxon blares loudly, the ground suddenly lurches violently, and the entire arena flips itself upside down in an apt expression of the mode's name. No time for recovery — a new round immediately kicks off after barrels, weapons, and players finish clattering onto the ceiling-turned-floor.
Ultimately, controlling gravity will make or break Inversion come its February 7, 2012 release date for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Other areas of gameplay — such as underpowered weapon impact and a dearth of precious Gravlink ammo — need more polish if Saber Interactive's original ideas want to outshine an otherwise average game.