Hey folks I’m back. Today’s game up for review is a hybrid first-person shooter/real-time strategy stylized game titled Disintegration. It was developed by Marcus Lehto’s game company V1 Interactive and published by Private Division.
You start with cutscenes giving you the basic plot which is very straightforward. Due to harsh living conditions within an epidemic, a company created a process that takes your brain and places it in a robot body. This point works into the game mechanics because if your squad gets blown up they don’t die if you manage to recover their heads.
The end game remains fixated on you hopefully being able to return to a human body once again. I like the plot revolving around bad robot guys who want you (Romer) to join them in replacing humanity with their new cyborg overlords. At the same time, it is part of my issue with this game. I would have liked more story but the pacing is abrupt and at times comes off pretty empty.
I feel the same about the HQ. Your squad has personalities that you get to see in short blurbs between missions and during the missions in the conversations between the action. There’s some solid voice acting from a cast that plays off of each other very well. However, there just isn’t much of it and not enough real depth any real depth.
In addition to this, the HQ is mostly empty space. I get that it eases the burden on the art and animation department but so many games lately seem to do this. You spend too much time interacting with generic droids to pick up bonus challenges to then go and fight mostly generic villain robots. You are thrust into the story fast and you have extraordinarily little given for you to ever really care why you are doing any of this in the first place.
The action is decent and decently paced. By keeping your squad small and giving your character a gravcycle (the spin on the main character feature) helps to keep the balancing of combat and squad control effective. The cycle is a gravity hovercycle so there is a challenge to aiming as you don’t stop on a dime. Being able to spin and lower or elevate yourself also allows for better aiming and tactics. You do not get to choose between the three types of gravcycle frames you eventually unlock. They are given to you according to the missions. To me, I can see why certain situations would require a specific gravcycle type, but it just keeps things too simplistic. Again for me, this is another issue with the game’s depth in all its aspects.
Upgrades play a part in strengthening Romer and his cast of squad-mates. To be fair, I found that the upgrades show some results. This is something that I have seen might not actually work well in squad-type RTS games. You can loot upgrade chips from boxes, lockers, etc, in which you task your squad to open with the scan feature. It took me a minute to actually figure out how to upgrade them because the talk bubble for the in-game tutorial by Seguin (Squad member) was cut off at the bottom of the screen. It’s located in the mission menu on a second tab.
Another feature I missed was better on-screen indicators for missions. The HQ is so large and empty yet the mission marker can be easily missed while standing in front of it. Once you know where it is, you just go to it but still some studios take the quality of life fixes for granted.
The game also has multiplayer content. I attempted to join 2 of the scheduled multiplayer dates. I stayed in queues for 5 minutes and more for two hours and not once was I joined by any other player/reviewers. So while there are multiplayer game modes, I can’t speak on the gameplay look or feel. I do know that there are skins for your squad that are available through gameplay unlocking and via microtransactions in the game store. That is all I have to say on multiplayer. Is Disintegration a bad game? No, not at all.
THE GOOD:
The storyline is good, and the gameplay is fast-paced with just some at times twitchy baddies. The squad commands however are fluid streamlined and effective in a good way. It makes good use of the squad commands and again the gravcycle is a great boon for tactics and strategy. The art is great, and the soundtrack is decent. I enjoyed the voice actors’ work and I would have liked to hear more of it. While it is a common “man becomes machine plot” it works.
THE BAD:
Disintegration starts to become repetitive shortly after playing. There seems to be very little lore even with scanning things to gain information. You get notes on vehicles, machinery, etc. that in no way adds to the gameplay or story. Other items such as circuit boxes and gas cans can also be spotted but don’t need to be scanned at all. The game feels like its missing detail within its lore, cast, the overall world itself. Aside from your group, pretty much the entire game feels very generic. I can’t describe how the multiplayer is since all I could do was peruse the menus and queue up.
Disintegration is a decent game, but I don’t feel like it is a complete game yet. It has potential but lacks variety and for me, it also failed to really capture interest I’m sad to say. As a former tester and now aspiring reviewer, I feel that being honest with developers can only help to better the game and the gaming industry as a whole. I want new IP’s to succeed. New content should always be strived for.
Disintegration just feels somewhat rushed. Its looks are polished, but it is lacking in content. Hopefully, the promised DLC that will be coming will elevate the game but at this point, I will not be continuing my play of this game now that this review is done. To V1 Interactive, I hope for your success and I hope that you continue to create new IPs. Please give us some meatier content. If you build it, they will Play! This is Scott aka the “Beast” signing out folks. Keep checking twitter @TheKoalition for new reviews and content
This review was written based on a digital review copy of Disintegration for the PC provided by V1 Interactive and Private Division.
