DLC Required

Remember how Frank West valiantly sacrificed himself at the end of Dead Rising 4 so that Vicky and Brad could escape? Yeah, that’s not the “true” ending. Purchasing the Frank Rising DLC reveals that West actually became a zombie, got better and then maybe escaped (or not, depending on your choices). Unfortunately this wouldn’t be the first time that a game’s “true” ending would be gated behind DLC – see Asura’s Wrath, also conveniently published by Capcom.

8. Inversion: Nothing You Did Mattered!

Inversion follows two cops trying to stop some other-wordly dudes from doing something or the other involving gravity and guns. But the main character Davis, like us, didn’t care about that crap. After the death of his wife, he simply wanted to find his daughter, whom he still believed to be alive. Unfortunately not only did Davis not survive the final battle but his partner Leo reveals the truth at the end. While Davis was mourning the loss of his wife, Leo did some snooping around the apartment and found Davis’s daughter crushed by rubble. He didn’t tell Davis however, believing that she deserved avenging more than anything. In a game that tried to beat us over the head with fantastical reveals and ho-hum confrontations, this one tragedy stuck out the most.

7. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Goes Ground Zero

It’s not the first time that a protagonist has died in a game. But for reasons we can’t fathom, it’s been a while since we recalled any other popular first person shooter that killed off it’s player character. Now, Call of Duty 4 had two protagonists, who’s perspective you shifted between throughout the game. But the way our marine went out was nothing short of shock and awe: A nuclear explosion. That our guy survived the helicopter crash but eventually died from the radiation, crawling out of the wreckage to see his entire team laid to waste, was nothing short of horrifying.

6. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Introduces Alucard

The game begins simply as you, Richter Belmont, walk into Dracula’s castle and get all up in his business. Ignore for a moment that he looks like Bob Hope (trust us), and something odd happens. Suddenly, it’s 5 years later and you’re playing as Alucard, Dracula’s son. Considering that this goes against the entire process of having a Belmont as the protagonist of every Castlevania game, it was quite a shock at the time. We later learned that Richter was the protagonist of Rondo of Blood (also known as Dracula X) and the beginning of the game was actually the concluding moments of the former. Rondo of Blood only saw NA and EU release via virtual console nearly 17 years after it’s initial launch.

You play as Davis, who’s on his way home with his partner, Token Sidekick, in tow for attending his daughter’s birthday. Lutadores strike. Chaos ensues. Through twists and turns, you land up with some gravity defying tech. It’s all very mysterious at this point, without seemingly any point to the proceedings, guided simply by Davis’s desire to find his daughter – and Token Sidekick just tagging along for the hell of it. Because solidarity, bro.

Honestly, I can appreciate their everyday-ness but man-alive, Davis and his partner are just boring. Yes, Epic overdid it’s characters in Gears of War but they still gave us reasons to care about them. Army of Two, by contrast, has these two meatheads, utterly frakked up and bloodthirsty beyond reprimand that you can get behind, if not invest in. As it comes across, Davis is one note and Sidekick has no backstory whatsoever.

Which shouldn’t matter if you have compelling gampelay. But Inversion’s beginning seems to be a classic example of “Show something awesome, but reintroduce it much later”. And if that weren’t bad enough, the mechanics of the Gravlink are pedestrian at best, clunky at worst. It’s nice to lug cars around at enemies. The Zero-G battles are quite compelling, especially against the Lutadore Assassins, as you maneuver in free orbit while attaching to floating objects in an effort to best them.

Moments like those are few and far between though. Most times, you’re just levitating dudes and shooting them. Or levitating them and throwing them places. Your Gravlink has a set number of uses that increase over time but you don’t get that raw feeling of power that justifies making it so far into the adventure. Most times, stuff just happens and you’re along for the ride.

For anyone complaining about squad-mates stealing kills in Gears 3, I invite you to Inversion where my partner simply couldn’t give a shit. Lackluster level design and imbalanced AI leads to multiple retries in a game that’s well overstayed it’s “nifty” welcome. The cool moments of Vanguard City besieged by gravity make way for mundane treks across deserts, mines and high-tech transport facilities. You can actually count the places were something interesting begins – and how it ultimately spirals into failure.

Enemies carrying Gravlinks are a good challenge. But a Behemoth wielding a Super Mini-Gun Annihilator 3000 and harnessing gravity (besides shooting guided missiles and running speeds uncharacteristic of a couple of moving tons)? That’s just harsh. Not as harsh as throwing a Slave Driver at you about 3-4 times throughout the game – with Slaves who can kill you in a few hits – but still pretty damn harsh. Even worse, it’s not a matter of employing new tactics. Just simply abusing the Gravlink in the best way possible until a result arises. And micromanaging gunplay with gravity manipulation is more troublesome than it needs to be.

The graphics are passable but don’t hold up on closer inspection, particularly in the real time lighting department. Shadows seem to shudder, and textures take a while to fully load. The music isn’t terrible, but there’s just not enough to say about it. A certain sound effect is used throughout. You’ll know it when you hear it, and honestly it makes me question the divide in budgets between the graphics and sound departments. That’s how annoyingly overused it is.

Inversion had so much potential but falls into inane pitfalls of design logic. There’s not many set pieces, but a cut-scene every few minutes. Maneuvering across cover is manageable until you come across cover that can be blown up, resulting in your utterly shocking death. And no, putting rockets on every single damn mini-boss does not compensate for their lack of tactics. You can’t play local co-op on Campaign mode, but can do so via XBox Live.

You can choose to care about this game and carry out till the end – which, honestly, I didn’t expect Saber Interactive to pull off, divisive as it may be – or you can choose not to. The difference is the number of hours you could spend playing something better. Inversion is less than the sum of it’s parts – and those parts come from much stronger titles well worth your time.

This game was reviewed on XBox 360.

In Inversion, players take on the role of Davis Russel, a young police officer, father and husband who finds himself thrust into a vicious war when society is overrun by an unknown enemy utilizing advanced weaponry that manipulates gravity to create bursts of low-gravity to levitate objects, or high-gravity to push objects and enemies to the ground.

***Please note this walkthrough was not uploaded by GamingBolt.com

Special thanks to Youtube user the3NI9MA for uploading this walkthrough.

Check out more video game walkthroughs here.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

Namco Bandai has announced that Inversion is now available in stores across US and EU. The game developed by Saber Interactive has been received decently by critics worldwide, and our preview praises it a lot too.

“Whilst we’re saving our judgement for the full game, at the moment Inversion seems to be a game of mixed fortunes. Some awful dialogue and single-player design choices are cancelled out by the fun, perspective-warping nature of the multiplayer and feels like it might be substantial enough to warrant a purchase, only time will tell,” wrote our author Jordan Garland.

In Inversion, players take on the role of Davis Russel, a young police officer, father and husband who finds himself thrust into a vicious war when society is overrun by an unknown enemy utilizing advanced weaponry that manipulates gravity to create bursts of low-gravity to levitate objects, or high-gravity to push objects and enemies to the ground.

With his daughter missing, Davis must work together with his partner Leo Delgado to take command of this advanced gravitational weaponry to save the world. In addition to the complete single-player campaign, Inversion features a comprehensive set of multiplayer modes, including gravity-defying maps and modes for up to 12 players online, as well as a full 2-player cooperative mode.

Stay tuned for our review of the game soon.

Take on the role of a young father and husband, David Russel, who finds himself thrust into war when his peaceful city is invaded by an unknown enemy. With his daughter missing and conventional weapons and tactics all but useless, this ordinary cop and his partner Leo Delgado will rise up to heed the call of duty, master the fundamental forces of gravity and save the world.

The game releases on 13th of July for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and 27th of July for PC.

In North America, Inversion was met with a less than amicable reception, garnering a 52% and 57% Metacritic score on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 respectively.

GamingBolt had the opportunity to get handsy with Inversion last month, with some very mixed results.

Inversion is developed by Saber Interactive and published by Namco Bandai.

Don’t just defy gravity. Command it. Take on the role of a young father, and husband Davis Russel, who finds himself thrust into war when his peaceful city is invaded by an unknown army.

With his daughter missing and conventional weapons and tactics all but useless, this ordinary cop and his partner Leo Delgado will rise up to heed the call of duty, master the fundamental forces of gravity and save the world.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

The gravity-defying third-person-shooter was previously set for a 8 June release in Europe and 5 June in North America on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, with the PC version wearing its best ‘at some point in the future’ hat.

This isn’t the first time Inversion has been pushed back, having already been delayed in March.

A previous statement from Saber Interactive read “The extra development time for Inversion affords the team the opportunity to create an enjoyable and engaging third-person shooter experience with a comprehensive multiplayer component, including extensive competitive and co-operative modes.”

The fact it was due for release in just over a week’s time suggests a potentially deeper issue with the game, by now most games due for an early June release would’ve already gone gold. So why did Saber leave it until now to delay Inversion again?

Publisher Namco Bandai have been contacted for comment.

We went to Namco Bandai’s offices to preview Inversion earlier this month, read all about it here.

In Inversion you assume the role of one Davis Russel, a hot-headed police officer who spends about half the game showing pictures of his daughter to complete strangers, like the most boring man in the office. Assisting him are the gruff overtones of Leo Delgado, a man made entirely of gravel. It’s just another day in Unspecified American City, Probably New York and all hell breaks loose when a mysterious horde of aliens named the Lutodores, essentially Chaos Space Marines on shore leave, get bored and start to shoot everyone in sight.

Dialogue is certainly not one Inversion’s strong suits, the opening monologue manages an unparalleled degree of cliché-laden pretentiousness, a flavourless macaroon committing the cardinal sin of naming itself in the opening dialogue. Other such gems include ‘We can use use!’ upon discovering some guns and when confronted with gun-toting hostiles, a timeless utterance of ‘I think they’ll shoot if we move.’ Whilst Inversion clearly isn’t trying to win any awards with the dialogue, some of the facial animation and gestures are pretty well done, successfully make our friends Davis and Leo seem a little more real.

Another issue which seems to plague the single-player portion of Inversion are some truly bizarre level design. In one segment, I frequently found myself wandering aimlessly through some underground caverns, with little guidance as to where or indeed what I was supposed to be doing, endlessly traipsing up and down until my good friend trial-and-error allowing me to continue. Increasingly frustrated with the environment, I also found a similar issue was the gravity gun and whilst fun to use, often found myself shooting it at meaningless bits of rock and earth in an attempt to get it to do something, with nary a hint or instruction as to what I should’ve been aiming at.

Inversion manages to look both quite impressive and underwhelming at the same time. Some environments are littered with uninspired textures and the entire game seemed to suffer from jagged-edges syndrome. Conversely, most of the multiplayer maps look pretty good, it’s just a shame the game seems so inconsistent.

Gravity mechanics are the unique selling point, this basis and the saving grace of Inversion. The gravlink, a gravity-gun, can pin your foes to the ground like Yokozuna or helplessly suspending them in mid-air, proving infinitely useful when faced with a marauding gaggle of Lutodores. Even better still are some of environments, with gravity occasionally switching or inexplicably changing planes, it makes for a welcome level of unpredictability in gameplay. A particular highlight, in both the single and multiplayer, is where gravity briefly ceases to apply, creating the quite serene experience of floating between chunks of rubble without a care in the world.

I get the feeling that the focus of the game is the multiplayer, the four maps I played on seem to have more craft and care into them than the single-player campaign thus far. Hourglass is capture the flag with an twist; once a base is captured, the map flips upside down, providing an entirely new perspective for gameplay, as well causing some momentary disorientation. King of Gravity sees only a single participant with a gravlink, with everyone else baying for their blood, allowing for some rather satisfying multi-kills.

Whilst we’re saving our judgement for the full game, at the moment Inversion seems to be a game of mixed fortunes. Some awful dialogue and single-player design choices are cancelled out by the fun, perspective-warping nature of the multiplayer and feels like it might be substantial enough to warrant a purchase, only time will tell.

Inversion is published by Namco Bandai, developed by Saber Interactive and is released on 8 June in Europe and 5 June on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

This game was previewed on the Xbox 360.