Recent reviews by your evil twin

A suprisingly good game. Some critics have dismissed Inversion as a Gears of War rip-off, and while it does have some obvious similarities I found that I enjoyed Inversion far more!

The story starts like a typical invasion story, but it actually has some crazy twists and becomes pretty interesting. I found myself compelled to keep playing to find out who the mysterious bad guys were and where they came from, and the answer did not disappoint. The game has colourful environments rather than being all grey or brown, and there is an impressive amount of attention to detail in the level design. The two heroes are much more likeable than the guys in GOW; they are tough guys but they are not cartoonish macho thugs, they are horrified by what is going on around them. I especially liked the player's partner Leo, who is very crass and vulgar but actually quite smart and the one who tries to figure out what is really going on. It also helps that in singleplayer your partner has excellent AI and is always a help rather than a hiderence.

The gameplay is a pretty competent cover-based third-person-shooter, but with a bunch of nice extra features. Inversion has impressive "Havok Destruction" physics that mean sustained fire will smash cover to pieces, so you have to keep moving rather than hide in one spot. There are fun bits where you are floating around in zero gravity or where walls or ceilings become the floor, which spices things up nicely.

Early in the game you aquire the Gravlink device and get special gravity powers. In the tutorial section you get to try out several abilities, but then this power is snatched away from you and you get a basic version that just lets you use Low Gravity to make objects and people float into the air.

Floating enemies take several seconds to adjust to their new situation before they resume shooting at you, and of course they are nice easy targets. The game includes typical red explosive barrels, but there are also yellow barrels that do nothing except leak when shot; however using low gravity on a yellow barrel will create a floating spherical blob of flammable liquid. You can also do a gravity shockwave attack that tears enemies to pieces, it's much better than a normal melee attack as it can kill multiple enemies, has a range of a couple of meters, and it can penetrate cover.

You gain more powers by killing bosses and taking components from their Gravlinks. You'll get the ability to grab or throw objects like Half-Life L2's gravity gun... in fact, it can even throw enemies at each other, so it is like the Super Gravity Gun that you get at the end of HL2! To prevent this from being ludicrously overpowered, so you can only grab and throw things that you have first made float using your zero gravity ability, but since you can make entire groups of enemies and objects float with just one or two low gravity blasts this is not a big inconvenience. Later you get an upgrade that allows you to throw huge objects like cars. It is especially important to remember this ability in tough fights; killing a giant boss enemy with an assault rifle takes an absurd amount of time, throwing objects at bosses is far more effective.

Later in the game you get High Gravity. You can use it on structures like guard towers and bridges to cause them to collapse, and you can cause hanging objects to fall to create cover. High Gravity pins tough enemies to the ground and make them helpless, while weaker enemies will be splatted against the floor and instantly killed. While in High Gravity mode your ability to grab and throw objects is replaced with a very effective defensive shield. The shield is essential for surviving battles in the last third of the game, and you have to get good at managing your energy so you can protect yourself and also have enough energy to do gravity attacks on enemies.

One criticism I have is that Inversion has a rather absurd number of cutscenes, like Max Payne 3 or Metal Gear Solid. You can skip them if you want to, though I recommend watching them otherwise you might miss an importatant plot point. (And in any case they were entertaining most of the time.)

This game is about messing with gravity, and I recommend that you do it constantly. If you just rely on your guns then it will seem like a pretty typical shooter, but the real fun comes from using your powers as often as possible. It is immensely satisfying causing a sniper to float out of cover, sucking him towards you and then punching his head off. Or running into the middle of a group of enemies, and just before being killed you do a ground shockwave attack and cause the entire group to explode into gory pieces. Ludicrous gibs = ludicrous fun.

One of the most enjoyable shooters I've played in years! Half-Life meets Bioshock meets Timesplitters: Future Perfect meets F.E.A.R meets C&C Red Alert meets Wolfenstein meets Timeshift meets Lost. The result isn't terribly original, but it's amazingly fun.

The game constantly surprises with a change in gameplay and mood every 15 minutes. Unlike Duke Nukem Forever, it actually does a good job of blending "old skool" gameplay with modern game design.

Pro tip 1: weapon lockers allow you to swap weapons, not just upgrade them. Pro tip 2: the upgrades for the "Deadlock" time-freezing bubble are incredibly overpowered and yet suprisingly cheap, so unless you want to make the game very easy, don't upgrade Deadlock, or at most only upgrade it once. Pro tip 3: if you have Windows 7 and the audio seems quiet, one solution is to Alt Tab out of the game, go into your volume controls, find the entry for SIngularity and boost the volulme.