Hybrid Review

The doom and gloom of brutal sci-fi warfare may be a far cry from the bubbly color and cutesy sheen of developer 5th Cell’s most famous franchise, Scribblenauts, yet the studio’s creative touch doesn't shine as brightly in its new divergent online-only multiplayer shooter -- at least not on the surface. Hybrid masks its highly innovative third-person combat with generic factions, standard weapons, and a presentation that's been cribbed many times before. But underneath all of that lies some of the craziest, most unique multiplayer mayhem I've hopped into in a long time.

Hybrid's three-on-three matches have teams of alien and human combatants gunning the hell out of one another across a medley of stark futuristic battlefields. While many of the weapons, play modes, and settings feel all too familiar, the bizarre way battles play out makes for a completely fresh, thrilling experience. Instead of running around freely on foot, everyone is stuck fighting from behind cover for most of the game. The only way to move around the map is to zip between fortified positions by picking another patch of nearby cover and making a wild, jetpack-aided beeline to safety. It's way cooler than it sounds. A lot can happen in the time it takes to rocket between locations, and the unpredictable ting of danger that comes with each commitment you make adds to the excitement.

Once you hit the air, you automatically fly to your selected destination, freeing up your focus to spray bullets at foes in any direction as you move. There's some built-in maneuverability to let you dodge and boost as you go, and selecting a different cover spot within view lets you change course on the fly. You can also tap a button to make a split-second retreat if things get too gnarly up ahead, which happens often. You could get blasted out of the sky in mid-flight or wind up landing face-to-face with a foe waiting for you on the opposite side of the barrier you just flew to. Firefights flow at a crazy pace, forcing you to keep a close eye on enemy positions and pull off turn-on-a-dime moves to stay alive.

Midair jetpack-fueled duels add chaos to Hybrid's cover-based shooting.

Successful kill streaks up the ante by letting you summon multiple tiers of AI-controlled robot drones to aid in battle, ranging from massive well-armed bots that pack a mean punch to heat-seeking ninja droids that emit a horrifying screech as they zoom in to insta-kill a single foe. In addition, unlockable special abilities and perks make leveling up feel satisfying and add nice depth to combat, since they expand your death-dealing repertoire with fun extras like teleportation, a self-destruct sequence, drone hacking grenades, increased firepower. You can only equip one cool-down ability and one persistent perk at a time, but there's a staggering amount of room for strategic variety.

Brisk one-off matches offer intense bursts of trigger-happy bliss on their own, but the fact they also play into a larger persistent global meta-game is what makes blasting from one battle to the next so addicting. Since you're recruited for one of the two warring factions from the get-go, every round you fight in a given territory earns points for your side and helps level-up your base in that region. Capturing territories takes a lot of joint effort but rewards your faction precious dark matter orbs that push you closer to winning the war. The meta-game is well underway, though there's plenty of contested territory left to capture before the season wraps up with a winner and everything is reset.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com