If you had attended E3 2011, or followed it online, you would have eventually run into Insomniac Games’ Overstrike. In classic Insomniac style, it featured four very unique characters that sported some pretty badass weaponry (no shocker there), and a mysterious story that wasn’t laid out fully through the E3 introductory trailer.
Violent, humorous and cartoony — these are the three words that most people probably took away from that trailer. Overstrike was definitely a step up from the days of Ratchet & Clank, but not as serious as a Resistance. The game fit squarely in the middle of all the titles that Insomniac had brought to life, which made it unique.
Then something happened. The weapons, which are typically Insomniac’s gaming speciality, started to NOT work out the way they planned. Isabelle’s weapon, which can be seen in the trailer before the alien robot goes nuts, was the beginning of Overstrike’s collapse. “The glue gun wasn’t working,” President and CEO of Insomniac, Ted Price, said during a roundtable earlier this month. “Even though it was cool looking, it wasn’t fun. We needed to go back and rework the gameplay.”
Not only did Insomniac rework the weapons, but they turned the entire game on its head. They scrapped the cartoony feel of the characters and replaced them with a bit more gritty looking soldiers. They also put together new ideas, and improved/changed the weaponry. Changes didn’t stop there, though. The plot of Overstrike was also altered in the rework. “The genesis of the main idea was a group of four people who have to chase down aliens, who are after Fuse technology.”, Price said. “Instead of making Fuse a plot device, [we decided] to make it part of the gameplay.”
The story changed from aliens trying to gain Fuse technology to an evil corporation known as ‘Raven’ trying to get the Fuse technology that was now made by aliens. To stop them, the Overstrike 9 team (Dalton, Naya, Isabelle and Jacob) were equipped with Fuse weaponry that had special attributes. For example, Dalton’s Fuse weapon is called the Mag Shield, which puts up an energy shield that blocks pretty much all weapon fire (and gives a nasty energy surge in return). The combination of all the characters kicking on all cylinders with their weapons, makes for a fast and furious amount of gameplay (at least in the demo). If you haven’t played the demo yet (and you should, it’s available now — helluva ride) then here’s what you can expect. Fuse is driven by co-op, you and three other players. You must treat this game with co-op in mind, meaning that you have to protect the other players, while protecting yourself. Insomniac wanted to make this game where you had a variety of special Fuse driven weapons that worked better when working together.
“We wanted to deliver something that would raise the bar with co-ops. Something that would make it’ fun to work with your team to take down enemies.”, said Price. So, when Dalton leads the charge he can throw down a shield to help his teammates attack enemies without getting hurt. The better cooperation from teammates, the easier gameplay will be in the long run. Of course, one of the bigger concerns with Fuse, as with most co-op driven titles, is finding enough friends who own the game to play to get the full experience. Valid concern? Absolutely, as most solo co-op experiences with a computer characters generally turns up stale and sometimes downright uncooperative. Price promises a bit different flavor with it, “Most games that lead with co-op, don’t have much of a solo campaign. We wanted to ensure that players who don’t play with other players still had a fun experience.”
How could they ensure this? The demo of Fuse showed signs of very intelligent AI that wants to work with you, but knows the risk of the situation. For example, when playing the demo, my CPU characters never followed the same path each time during my outing. Rather, they followed my lead and evaluated my decision making. If I ran into trouble and needed reviving (several times), depending on my location and my proximity to the enemies, they judged whether they could come revive me or wait until I got into better position. It was impressive to watch onscreen. Having healthy AI to make up for the lack of friends playing co-op is certainly a strong point with solo co-oping. Insomniac did more than build a strong core of AI to make Fuse separate itself from the competition. They included a technique called ‘Leap’.
“You can leap between different characters, even when you have 2-3 human gamers [involved].” said, Price. Leaping back and forth between characters ‘during’ gameplay gives gamers the opportunity to customize their team. It also provides a chance for players to level up the characters through skill trees. These trees can add more defense, offense or other attributes to individuals on the team. “Progression of the game is driven by four skill trees. Each is different [between characters].” Price continued, “Fuse credits can [also] be found in campaign and competitive mode, [which allows players] to buy upgrades.” All of this put together adds a bit more depth to the co-op driven game, and provides a little more bang for the buck.
From what we’ve played of the demo, the game certainly looks promising, and daring in some areas. Seeing the full game in action will provide the best prospective on Insomniac’s success/failure with the rework. Regardless of outcome, one thing is for certain — Insomniac seems very satisfied with the changes they’ve made to the original game, and what has come from their new IP, as Price states “We wanted to deliver something that would raise the bar with co-ops.”
Hopefully they did just that. We’ll know in a couple of weeks.
