Inversion preview

We get our hands on another sampling of Inversion, Saber Interactive's cover-based gravity-bending shooter.

8

Inversion is Saber Interactive's latest shooter, a gravity-bending affair scheduled to arrive on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in February 2012. My previous look at Inversion only gave me time to form a first impression; however, I recently had another opportunity to play the game first hand, giving me a stronger sense of what Sabre is up to with its next title.

Inversion's story focuses on a young cop, Davis Russel, and his partner, Leo Delgado, who are on their way home after a tough day of crime fighting. Then, aliens invade the planet along with gravity-bending technology, causing worldwide chaos and destruction. Russel finds that his wife has been killed and his daughter has gone missing, just before he and Delgado are imprisoned by the aliens. The two escape from prison, and players embark on a quest to find out what's happened to Russel's daughter. While relatively standard faire, Inversion's narrative gives players a clear-cut motivation for all the alien corpses they'll leave behind.

At first glance, Inversion may seem like just another cover-based shooter that borrows heavily from the Gears of War design ethos. Sabre Interactive doesn't shy away from this comparison; however, they quickly clarify that what sets Inversion apart from its brethren is that it gives players the ability to manipulate and interact with gravity in a handful of fun and interesting ways. While the portion that I played at the Ignite event was set in an urban environment, the most recent level that I played showed off a cavernous, lava-filled area that the aliens had taken over for habitation.

Early on, players will get access to a device that allows players to tweak gravity in various ways. This so-called Gravlink device is Inversion's bread and butter. In the recent demo, the Gravlink could be toggled between high and low gravity settings, each with its own set of associated powers. One of the low-gravity abilities available was the ability to create a large anomaly with reduced gravity that everything caught within it (including enemies) to float. This proved very handy in removing enemies from cover. Low-gravity mode can also be used to tether and throw objects or enemies, which is also handy when deaing out the hurt.

I also encountered a couple of enemy captains in the latest demo, who are elite alien soldiers that will use their own Gravlink devices against you in combat. These captains were able to use the Gravlink's grapple and throw abilities to hurl debris at my player. Hunkered down behind cover that was slowly disintigrating under enemy fire, I was pleasantly dismayed to note that these elite enemies could also unleash their own low-gravity anomalies on me, causing me to float helplessly skyward as I returned fire while trying to dodge incoming bullets.

I only got to experiment a bit with the Gravlink's high-gravity mode, which can be used to cause suspended objects to fall. In the heat of combat, it can also be used to create a high-gravity anomaly, which brings all enemies inside its radius to their knees for a brief time, making for easy pickings.

Gravitational curiousities also permeate Inversion's level design. Vector shifts, which can turn an area's wall into its new floor, come in both static and dynamic varieties. Vector shifts are represented by glowing nodes in the environment. When stepped on, the player is reoriented, standing on a floor that was previously a ceiling. Battles occasionally began with the opposing force standing on a wall, but stepping on a nearby node can reorient the player to the same gravitational plane as his enemies.

Zero-gravity anomalies also make an appearance. They're basically large areas in which gravity has been permanently reduced. Though I didn't get to play through any of these levels firsthand, the action forces the player to float from cover to cover while engaging hostiles.

My hands-on time with Inversion has done a lot to dispel the concern that the various gravity-based mechanics are simply gimmicks. In practice, the game's clever implementation of gravity mechanics, in both the level design and minute-to-minute combat, made the various battlefields less predictable than in other cover-based shooters, and added some interesting flavor to the alien altercations.

Inversion isn't due out until February 7, 2012 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but we'll be keeping an eye on this one as its release draws closer. We've been told that more details about Inversion's cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes will be revealed at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Filed Under
From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 19, 2011 3:45 PM

    Comment on Inversion preview, by Jeff Mattas.

    • reply
      April 19, 2011 4:11 PM

      The Saber guys are a great group of people, so I can't wait to see how this is gonna turn out!

    • reply
      April 19, 2011 4:23 PM

      That looks pretty bad ass and Time Shift was a diamond in the rough as far as I'm concerned, will definitely be keeping an eye out for this one.

      • reply
        April 19, 2011 5:01 PM

        Someone who liked Timeshift, YAY! I just hate that we released it the same week as COD, it had some really good multiplayer gameplay that I think people would've really enjoyed had it not been completely overshadowed by COD4. :(

        • reply
          April 19, 2011 6:38 PM

          I never even tried the multiplayer to be honest, but the single player had the same quality as the Max Payne games where I would run each gunfight over and over just to try all the crazy shit I could think up.

        • reply
          April 20, 2011 5:09 AM

          Oh, the time grenade thing? That was a great way to implement a horribly impractical mechanic into multiplayer, congrats on that. It's a shame it hasn't been tried again by anyone else (as far as I'm aware).

        • reply
          April 20, 2011 4:38 PM

          I completed TimeShift SP at least twice. It was pretty fun and I'll probably play it again sometime. :)

        • reply
          April 21, 2011 6:36 PM

          "we released"


          you work there or what?

    • reply
      April 19, 2011 4:31 PM

      Videogames presents: A Video Game.

    • reply
      April 19, 2011 5:19 PM

      Reminds me of Timeshift. Or Singularity. I hope it turns out well. The concept has a lot of potential to spice things up, imo.

    • reply
      April 19, 2011 5:40 PM

      Is it just me or do the enemies in this game look similar to the enemies in Gears?

    • reply
      April 19, 2011 6:45 PM

      Not on PC? Too bad.

    • reply
      April 20, 2011 5:26 AM

      Sigh. Way to steal my game concept and name :(

      http://img96.imageshack.us/i/inversion.png/

      Bah, I always seem to be too slow.

    • reply
      April 20, 2011 5:46 AM

      I rather liked the gravity shifting in Prey. I'd like to see more focus on that than just another Gravgun from Half Life 2 (plus Bulletstorm's lash, I guess?).

    • reply
      April 20, 2011 1:04 PM

      Finally! A game that lets me play as Nick Lachey!

    • reply
      April 20, 2011 2:25 PM

      Gears of Walls

    • reply
      April 20, 2011 2:30 PM

      Inception you mean ?

Hello, Meet Lola