Hybrid Review

Ba5sett Wed Aug 22, 2012 1:55 pm

Developed by 5th Cell

Review by Ba5sett

Hybrid is a third person cover based online shooter from developer 5th Cell previously known for their entertaining DS and iOS puzzle game Scribblenauts which allowed you to conjure up pretty much any object that you wanted to get past the various traps and puzzles in each level. Hybrid is a fairly big departure from their previous game but maintains the developers desire to do things a bit differently.

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The story in Hybrid is fairly generic and only really serves as an excuse to set up the action, taking place at some unspecified point in the future, humanity is under attack by an alien race called the Variants and uses its own army the Paladins to fight back.

Matches in Hybrid take the form of squad based 3 vs 3 matches with all of the modes that are now standard for any online shooter: team deathmatch, king of the hill, base capture, capture the flag etc etc.. The main difference in Hybrid is the way that you move your avatar around the screen. Being a third person cover based shooter I was expecting the game to play a bit like gears but in reality it couldn’t be any different. Ground movement has been completely removed from the game, you have a jetpack but can only fly from one cover spot to another. It’s a strange departure especially with us all being hard wired into a certain way of playing from years of Gears of War, Mass Effect and all of the other similar games out there but in practice it actually works pretty well.

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To move from one piece of cover to another you simply highlight the new cover and hit A, while in the air you can strafe around, shoot and use a turbo boost to get there a little quicker or even select a new cover to continue flying around. Once in cover you can strafe left or right and Y to flip over the cover if you are taking fire from behind. The game is fast paced and the large open maps mean that you need to stay on your toes all the time to try and prevent getting flanked and to keep on top of the enemy.

There is a specialization system in place which gives buffs to attack, defence, ability recharge etc, an ability system where you can chose one special ability from a list such as grenades, teleport etc and a basic killstreak system which rewards you with certain drones for kills, one kill grants you the stalker which is a basic robot which hovers next to you behind cover and provides a bit of backup fire against enemies, three kills gets you the warbringer which is a bit more active in seeking out enemies and has greater firepower and finally five kills gets you the preyon which is a female looking robot that will seek out the nearest enemy and unless they are extremely quick and accurate in their shooting and can take the preyon out before she arrives or extremely lucky will take them out with a one shot kill.

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The maps in the game are solid and while fun at first they do all have a very similar feeling and it won’t take long before you start to get a bit of déjà vu setting in, one of the other problems is not so much with the game but the choices of the people playing, nearly everyone seems to opt for team deathmatch games but due to the cover based nature of the game other game types, particularly king of the hill where one team tries to hold a point against an assault from the other are much more entertaining and suit the cover based gameplay perfectly.

The Graphics in the game are pretty decent running at a crisp 60 frames per second with miminal slowdown even during busy gameplay and with an artstyle that falls somewhere between Halo and Metal Gear Solid and the sound is fairly solid with satisfying explosions and sound effects. One slightly dodgy decision that I noticed is that you can use MS Points to unlock any weapon and ability so even when playing on release day there were people running around with all the best kit destroying everyone which is a little annoying but I am sure will become less of an issue as time goes on.

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In summary I would say that Hybrid is a decent shooter once you master the unusual controls particularly if you are looking for something a little bit different, the gameplay in team deathmatch never really evolves from a fast paced cycle of duck and cover shooting and due to the similar maps can get a little boring after a while but the other team based games keep things fun.

Overall
7 / 10

**KENT HAMMER** Wed Aug 22, 2012 3:31 pm

Nice one Bertie!

Now share out the bloody liquorice you greedy git Wink

Sh00t3rmcgavin2 Thu Aug 23, 2012 8:08 am

Nice review dude!!

Ba5sett Thu Aug 23, 2012 9:31 am

KENT HAMMER wrote:Nice one Bertie!

Now share out the bloody liquorice you greedy git

Keep the liquorice, the jelly babies are mine though Smile

Guest Thu Aug 23, 2012 10:19 am

nice work Bassett matey

after struggling with the controls in Alone with a Shark for days now, I think I might skip any future titles that have odd/quirky ways of moving your player for quite a while

Good review though

Slayer1189 Fri Aug 24, 2012 2:42 am

Nice review.

This is the only SoA 2012 title I passed on getting. I've heard some good reports but I'm always put off by MP heavy games.

Colne Crusader Fri Aug 24, 2012 6:19 am

Good writing mate. Seems a reasonable game. Not one for me however!

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