It has always been clear that Disintegration was not going to be for everyone: Marcus Lehto’s new IP, co-founder of the legendary Halo saga, combines elements from two very different genres that could be solved very well at the controls, and a science scenario fiction with a lot of potential. It has been successful? Well, half.
Disintegration is a very rare game, very unique, one of those that appear once when they put something interesting on the table and then either go to school or don’t hear from them for a long time… without the desire to anticipate events. However, even within its strangeness, the new Marcus Lehto (the drummed co-creator of the Halo saga) has such a simple and natural premise that it seems super easy to explain to someone completely foreign to the game how it is to get behind the wheel: think about the genre of strategy in real time. Almost always, in these titles we play an “omniscient” general capable of surveying the battlefield at his leisure, without limitations; and sometimes very rarely as in Kingdom Under Firewe put ourselves in the shoes of a general who marches to the battlefield and begins to fight in the third person as in any action game.
Disintegration mixes both: it is an RTS where your “general” pilots a ship (here called a gravicle) and can scan the battlefield from a privileged perspective, but actively participate in it as one more armed unit, with controls similar to those of any FPS. What this interesting suggestion gains in immersion, it often loses in grandstanding. There is no great army under our feet, nor is there a modest battalion, but rather a group of between two and five subjects to whom we can assign very limited contextual orders and who expand our arsenal with what we could clearly consider special abilities. .
The result, as I say, is quite particular. It does not take more than a few minutes playing to understand how everything works, but from there to really enjoy it there is a good way. The reality is that the set feels a little tasteless As if the same idea needed more depth, more intensity or more variety to succeed. It does not finish as a shooter or as a strategy game. Often times fighting can feel slow, control of units is limited; the resolution of each contest, repetitive. I do not want to be misunderstood: there are many good things in controlling the ship and units, a lot of interest in providing small options to proceed during combat and there is a lot of flexibility in the balance between strategy and action; but it becomes so routine, so mechanical, that in the end only the most enthusiastic and willing to play at maximum difficulty will end up finding something worth squeezing.
Of apocalypse, outlaws and combat vehicles
Regardless of the way we are playing – or the difficulty option, if we talk about the campaign – there is a common element that can make us raise an eyebrow, and that is the fear of losing subjects in the fray. If our small team of militiamen falls, the next on the list is us. Each of them comes equipped with some unique weapon, artifact, or feature that works as a skill. The commands are very simple: on the keyboard, just press the key assigned to each character and select the area or enemy to which you want to direct whatever you want to do well; And we also have an additional pulse that is merely contextual: it is used to bring our soldiers to a specific point or ask them to interact with an object.
And that is where the control over these important troops that we have both in the campaign and in the multiplayer reaches. They cannot be directed individually, and if you ask a certain character to fire, for example, mortar fire at an area, you can already cover it well during the seconds it takes to execute the animation on duty because you risk losing it during a minute … unless you risk picking up its core, in which case you can considerably speed up the unit’s reappearance at the cost of irrevocably taking a few shots. But it’s worth it: as I told you above, without subjects you don’t get anywhere.
We miss more agility, more action or excitement, more challenging troops or relying less on them in Disintegration
Admittedly, everything is very well balanced, even if it’s not always the most fun. For example, in multiplayer you can open fire as much as you want against a gravicle, but if that player can summon a healing field, you’re just wasting time: the small troops half-way between the AI and the player are the real objectives on many occasions, and although it is not very fun to fight against them, you must keep them at bay to keep the game going. Troops are in considerable health and there are not many weapons. Particularly destructive, so each duel is an exchange of bullets where you can carefully decide whether to retreat, advance, where and when to cast each skill, etc. Sometimes we lack more agility, more action or emotion, more challenging troops or less dependent on them to get through a situation successfully (especially in the difficult modes of the campaign or multiplayer).
And speaking of the campaign, it is structured in thirteen missions, but the duration of each one depends largely on the difficulty mode we choose. These have a little more depth than it seems: there is a “story mode” for those who do not want to go around it a lot, and equivalent to “easy, normal, difficult” with the condition that each one offers a different balance between action and strategy. So if you choose to play “recruit (easy)” you won’t have to worry too much of the troops – they will defend themselves well. But Disintegration is best when you combine direct action with decision making, and that is best enjoyed in medium or difficult difficulties … which also have a great impact on duration. So, each mission lasts between 20 and 40 minutes depending on the game style and difficulty mode that we like the most. It depends a lot on the player.
Clarified this, also that breaking the lance in favor of V1 Interactive in terms of history , and is that surprisingly it continues with some interest from start to finish, there are various characters and also makes us go through situations that within what fits , they can be considered varied. For example, new enemy classes appear With different attack patterns and combat strategies, some require us to shoot at a certain point, and there are also some smart opponents preparing to resist our soldiers’ rush when we assign new commands to them. But even with this, even with the destructible objects, even with the barricades, the loot caches or the cages with hostages … it ends up being repetitive, because everything is limited to fighting the same way over and over again, even if it is in scenarios more open or closed.
But I insist: the story is not bad, it has a film component that suits him and that is vaguely reminiscent of Neil Blomkamp’s films (I suppose that Chappie more than any, if only because of the theme). It takes us to a desolate Earth where Humanity faced extinction. The alternative to dying was to make use of a phenomenon called integration, which consists of bringing the consciousness of a person to a robotic body. Now that that has happened, there are two conflicting opinions: the faction called Rayonne strives to eradicate the “natives” while the outlaws like our protagonist, the former gravel pilot Romer Shoal , stand up to this dogma in hopes of recovering the skin someday.
Along the way all kinds of robotic and human allies appear, and although the fighters generally have very flat and secondary personalities, they complement each other well, they have their grace and charisma. It seems incredible, but I wish that at the level of mechanical progression they were up to it, but it is not the case. It’s pretty simple: As we use a character in combat, he gains experience and levels up. Doing so unlocks passive skill slots(health, damage, or cool down improvements, in general) that can be purchased using chips distributed by caches on the battlefield, so scrutinizing the resources around us more or less has its reward. But each soldier is quite limited in arsenal and possibilities, so in any case you have to keep an eye on each step they take and if they fall, it’s time to withdraw.
The multiplayer has an approach more akin to that of an MOBA. Instead of letting us create a character with soldiers and weapons of our choice, it offers a variety of factions (classes) preconfigured with unique characteristics. For example, King’s Guard is inspired by medieval knights, it is a tremendously slow and defensive faction that uses a weapon similar to a crossbow. Since they are effective at a distance, they can often ignore enemy troops and directly attack opponents approaching a target, for example. For its part, Warheadz is a mass of pure damage and can help “push” in any situation. As a secondary weapon they have a very slow and difficult to control warhead (nuke), but it causes the greatest destruction in the entire game. And still … you can’t defeat some enemies with one blow. Disintegration is like this: combat from ships is fine, but first you have to go through the least interesting minion game.
On the other hand, it is worth noting also that the game offers a few add-ons for the online experience. For example, we have an icon editor and a good list of “business cards” to unlock, as well as accessories, even if they don’t show much. It is a shame that the skins of each faction summarize a simple recoloring exercise, because it would be interesting to see other ways to explore the theme of each faction. There is also a test mode in which to practice and get used to the idea of how to take advantage of each character, although once you understand how to handle everyone, that mode loses a lot of interest.
On a technical level, Disintegration defends itself well. It is not as if it were a graphic portent at all, and in fact often the maps are somewhat poor in terms of textures or modeling, with the forgiveness of the destruction of scenarios that frankly surprises and for good, although it does not impact too much on the gameplay beyond spoiling some coverage. They do have a good artistic variety and a soundtrack … correct, merely ambient, but passable. Regarding dialogues and interface, the game comes translated and subtitled in many languages, with a very good level of dubbing in strict English. The PC version for its part, it has a good number of graphic configuration options, key assignments and important functions such as unlimited frame rate per second, internal resolution or field of view, among others. Maintaining high FPS is easy even in wide open spaces, although any resolution above 1080p increases the frame rate exponentially.
At launch, Disintegration is more interesting as an idea than as a result. It is well planned, it feels balanced and fair, the campaign boasts a certain variety and a good production … but at the moment of truth there are not many moments of emotion or tension, and there are important characteristics that for one reason or another do not have been implemented. Is there potential after the game? Of course it does, but at the moment it is not easy to take off. You will have to fight monotony if you want to bring out its many virtues through updates and the like.
- Participating in the contests with the troops feels right, it is a good premise.
- Good variety of play styles to adopt in multiplayer.
- The campaign is followed with relative interest …
- Although the objectives end up being repetitive.
- The progression system for campaign mode is somewhat lazy.
- Many fights feel excessively slow and devoid of emotion.
- Duration:6-8 hours (campaign) + incalculable multiplayer
- Players:1-10 (Competitive: Online)
Name:
Disintegration
Release Date:
June 16, 2020
Platform:
PC
Also available for:
PS4 XOne
Genre:
Action, Shooter, First Person (FPS) (Space and Science fiction)
Number of players:
1-10 (Competitive: Online)
Estimated duration:
6-8 hours (campaign) + incalculable multiplayer
Developer:
V1 Interactive
Distributor:
Private Division
Recommended age (PEGI):
Waiting for classification
Links:
