PLATFORM: PC, PS4, XBOX ONE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
150 years from now, many humans have been integrated with robots, their brains transplanted into mechanical bodies to boost their chances of survival in an endless battle against war, disease and mortality in general. Celebrity Gravcycle pilot (yes, that’s a thing) Romer Shoal has just escaped from captivity in the hands of Black Shuck, the leader of the Rayonne, a heartless bunch of fiends who want to eliminate all non-integrated humans from the face of the earth. But Romer has a band of buddies who are more than willing to fight for humanity’s existence…
Disintegration attempts to merge a first person shooter mechanics with real-time strategy elements by casting players as Romer, who hovers around the battlefield on his Gravcycle (which is exactly what it sounds like – a flying motorbike) while commanding his allies on the ground. It might sound like it could get a bit complicated, but in practise it’s all very straightforward – perhaps even a bit too straightforward.
Romer’s command over his crew is limited to a couple of functions – ordering all companions to attack a single target at once, and directing each person’s single special ability. This means that crew members are effectively just extensions of your own abilities – you’ll be doing most of the shooting from above, occasionally remembering to use your allies to set up health-boosting medical posts or throw a few grenades towards enemies on the ground. Your crew grows throughout the game and can be upgraded between missions, but you’re never given the chance to customise your loadouts so you’re usually stuck with a few abilities that never get used because they don’t fit your playstyle.
Outside of the 10-15 hour campaign, there are three multiplayer modes which will be familiar to players of most modern online shooters. These can be a lot of chaotic fun (as you’d expect from a development team who were previously involved in the Halo franchise), but finding a game is a bit unpredictable – even now, a week or so after release, it can take so long to find a game that you just give up waiting.
The story mode is undeniably fun in short bursts, but might not be engaging enough to remain satisfying for the entire journey. When multiplayer works, it works tremendously well, although the current battle to get into a game is less than desirable. If it can build up a player base then we might be looking at something special, but right now it’s a difficult one to fully recommend.
