![]() ![]() As you explore the world you find hidden caches of alien DNA - these take the form of hexagonal pieces with connections on various sides, some are straight, others bend and others act as splitters, with different permutations available for each. The swarm evolve by marrying the genetics of their current creatures with those found in host populations to create new, superior lifeforms and this is exactly what the game allows you to do. It's this upgrade system which really sits at the core of MorphX aiming is mostly handled for you while close combat is also relatively simple with attacks and combos all triggered off just the one button, but how you configure your character, choosing which upgrades to enable, is the key to really getting satisfaction from this game. Such abilities include being able to reflect back enemies' attacks, a rage mode that converts melee damage dealt back in to health and the ability to see cloaked enemies and hidden objects. And once the player has mastered some of the alien abilities, acquired as the mutation progresses, flicking between both forms of attack seamlessly in the combat situations livens proceedings up considerably. ![]() This does diminish a lot of the satisfaction to be had from a ranged kill, but right from the start you're going to be required to mix it up with plenty of melee kills as well. The auto-aim is unfortunately more generous than is really needed, lining up a bead on a enemy just requires pointing the camera within several metres of them and the game will happily arrange the sights on the target for you. The result of which is relatively fast moving, arcade feeling combat experience. The third-person shooter mechanics are rather reminiscent of the Suffering games from the last generation: turning is fast and responsive, as is player movement, there's no cover system in place and there's a very generous auto-aim. the more likely they are to flatten you into a pulp. MorphX may not win any awards for its story but it turns in a solid science-fiction world that ticks all the boxes required to provide a battle you can really immerse yourself in and has enough potential to easily support a series of titles. It may offer up only a small victory in the grand scheme of things but it's the first the humans have had in a long time and is a lot more believable than having the player cornily drive off the invasion over the course of a seven-hour adventure. This has kept the story more tightly linked to the main character's emotional journey but hasn't stripped away the feeling of accomplishment provided by the ending. What's pleasing is that the game doesn't try and cover too much ground over the course of its duration, the developers have set up a global, near-insurmountable threat to the human race but rather than try and cover the entire storyline from discovery to destruction they've instead kept the plot localised to just the one occupied city. There's the odd twist and turn along the way with the player starting out having just escaped from one such processing centre, infected by the swarm and already beginning to mutate, which initially puts you in conflict with both the alien and human forces, neither sure which side of the fence you are on. And in a nod to a certain Hollywood franchise things have only got worse since the swarm started to produce infiltrators based on human DNA, able to pass themselves off as human with the goal of identifying the locations of secret bases and installations. This has forced the remaining human population onto the backfoot, laying low, able to engage in nothing more than small guerilla attacks with a limited success rate. The alien swarm managed to quickly decimate most of the Earth's concentrated armed forces and have since set about exploiting the planet's lifeforms and resources for their own ends. The game is set in Moscow, several years after a large scale alien invasion. MorphX - basic graphics but lots of violence!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |