Disintegration isn’t just a great album by The Cure it is also an up and coming first-person shooter from V1 Interactive and I was lucky enough play the closed technical beta over the last few days. The main selling point for the game is that instead of running around shooting your enemies, you instead take control of a grav-cycle and command a small squad of AI troops. The grav-cycles have their own weapons (a main and a secondary) which ones you have depends on which crew you pick. Your AI troops also have special abilities like frag grenades, homing missiles etc..
There is a short tutorial at the beginning of the game just to give you a chance to get to grips with the controls, I would suggest you give this a few goes as in the heat of a battle I found myself hitting the wrong buttons and getting frustrated. Also, it is just a basic tutorial and it doesn’t really give you any help when it comes to the different type of grav-cycles and their weapons.
Old but new
The whole general feel of Disintegration reminded me of the old 90’s Playstation game, Future Cop: LAPD even down to the Bladerunner-esque soundtrack. The grav-cycle itself is easy to manoeuvre and you can travel anywhere on the map as long as there is solid ground below you. I would have liked a bit more in this regard as its just the basic up, down, left and right, no barrel rolls or fancy strafing to evade your enemies, this made it feel clunky and somewhat stationary. This I hope will be rectified when the full game is released as you would expect more from a co-creator of Halo.
We only got to play the multiplayer aspect of the game and there was nothing new in that either. The two modes, retrieval (deliver a payload as an attacker and defender) and zone control (point control/domination) are modes that every FPS player is familiar with. While playing it took a while to get used to using your troops and controlling your grav-cycle and this along with your teammates in the same predicament can make it messy at times, most of the matches I was involved with was just the grav-cycles sitting back and shooting and the troops all mashed together shooting each other it’s not a pretty sight. I would like the troops to have some kind of cover command so you can use them more strategically instead of a big mash-up.
A lick of paint
We also got to see some of the crews, and with each crew you get to try out their unique grav-cycle weapons and troops. This is where Disintegration shined for me, I am a sucker for customising characters and unlocking skins. You can also make your own badge and unlock banners so you and your friends can make your crew your own.
The part I am most intrigued with is the campaign and what it has in store. A good story and characters will do this game wonders as it did for Halo, the crews need fleshing out so they don’t just become faceless skins. I know it was just a technical beta but I was expecting a little bit more than what was given. Maybe when the open beta begins they will release a little more. All in all, I will be looking to see how Disintegration gets on when released.
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