There are few games I get extremely hyped for these days thanks to the sheer number of games that release every week. There are always those few games that get shown off that have an awesome concept and get me excited to see more. Disintegration from V1 Interactive was one such title and the pedigree of the team behind it only served to amplify my interest. The concept of 2 post-human robotesque factions doing battle for the fate of the planet is up there for a concept I wanted to see. Add in the flight based combat and squad mechanics and I was sold instantly! Now that I have finally played through the journey of Disintegration, I can say that the game mostly lived up to my hype and it has me even more excited to see what comes next.
Story
Xbox One review code provided by the publisher for review.
In the not-so-distant future, humanity has reached a breaking point in survivability. Global economic, health, and climate changes threaten to destroy everything. But through the science known as Integration, humans can continue surviving while also reducing the needs on the planet by having their brains transferred into robot bodies. At first, the process is a voluntary one and many high profile celebrities undertake the process, including hot-shot Gravcycle pilot Romer Shoal. Before too long a faction of Integrated known as the Rayonne rises up and takes over the planet, forcing the Integration process on everyone. It now rests on the shoulders of a small band of outlaws and resistance fighters to fight back against the Rayonne and reboot humanity.
Gameplay
How to describe what it is like to play Disintegration? Honestly, it reminded me so much of playing a number of squad-based games including Freedom Fighters, Brothers in Arms, and Brute Force (only so much better in the case of that last one). You play as Romer Shoal who has just escaped a Rayonne prison with a number of other Outlaws. Together you join forces with “a natural” (a non-integrated human) known as Waggoner to take the fight back against your captors. From the first mission, you quickly find out that Disintegration is a different type of shooter.
Playing as Romer has you in the pilot's seat of a gravcycle, an aerial light attack craft. From the gravcycle, it is your job to lead your squad of Outlaws through a number of increasingly difficult missions. Each mission gives you a preset gravcycle configuration and squad members to command, so don’t expect any weapon or team customizations here. I honestly didn’t mind this myself and working through the game with what is given to you is a fun challenge in its own right, but in this day and age of customizing everything, this might annoy some.
Each of your squad members has a different ability that can help take out groups of enemies with a press of the corresponding d-pad direction. The abilities available during the campaign include being able to use concussion grenades to stun opponents (which allows you and your squad to deal more damage), throw up a slow movement zone (which makes enemies and their projectiles move slower), artillery barrage, or ground slam a group of opponents (heavy-hitting, area of effect attacks). Each ability has a cooldown timer so they can’t be spammed.
Anyways, being able to fly around the engagement zone is a particular joy for me as flight based games have always been among my favorites. While being airborne would seem to be a huge advantage over the ground-based enemies in the game, your gravcycle isn’t always the fastest and most armored piece of tech, so you can be killed easily if you aren’t careful. Health can be very limited in the game, thanks to there being no full-on regenerative health system. You can gain back small amounts of health when out of combat but never the full bar. This is why commanding your squad and utilizing their abilities is essential to success! From your aerial vantage point, you can prioritize certain targets for your squad to attack and deploy their abilities.
Once you get the basics down, Disintegration becomes a very enjoyable tactical shooter and one I couldn’t pull myself away from. Each mission in the campaign can take 30 minutes or more to complete on your first playthrough and includes a good amount of engagements. Normally I don’t care for longer missions like these but I really like the combat system which makes all the difference in the world! The variety of settings doesn’t hurt either, with missions taking place in mountains, underground prisons, military bases, and a rundown city.
Between each mission you get the chance to run around your base/staging area and interact with your crew. This is where a good amount of the backstory behind each character is explored, so if you care about the game’s story definitely check in with everyone. This is also when you get the opportunity to upgrade your crew members with upgrade chips you acquire during missions. Your gravcycle comes equipped with a nice scanner function that lets you find supply crates. Each crate offers salvage, which you need to level up and unlock more skill slots, and the possibility of an upgrade chip, which is used in the unlocked upgrade slots. Upgrades can reduce the cooldown on abilities, or increase the health and damage of you and your crew members. The upgrades can really change the tides of battle so it is definitely worth taking that extra time to scour the battlefield to find the necessary chips.
A number of challenges for upcoming missions are also offered by your team, which typically task you with defeating enemies in a certain way, like killing 20 slowed enemies. Other challenges are timed or life based so they can be pretty difficult on the game's higher difficulties. By completing these challenges you earn additional upgrade chips. In total, Disintegration includes 4 difficulty modes for players of different skill levels. The easiest of which is for story-focused players where you can steamroll most obstacles, while the highest will put your squad-managing skills to the absolute test. During a good number of missions, you are equipped with some form of repair unit that will be essential to keeping your crew and by extension yourself alive. If a crew member dies you can swoop in to retrieve their brain and they will be redeployed within a few seconds.
After you finish the campaign you can keep the battles raging in Disintegration’s multiplayer mode, which features a number of different playable crews, each with their own unique look and load-outs. There are 3 multiplayer modes to play including zone control, collector, and retrieval. I haven’t spent the most time with multiplayer but each mode was enjoyable from my time with them. The retrieval gametype in particular is my personal favorite, as it tasks you with retrieving or defending a core from the opposing team. The cool catch is that only your ground units can claim a core, which makes them a priority to protect. If a core is dropped it will explode a short time later, making speed a key approach here. It is fun to be able to coordinate between various teams of gravcycles to achieve victory!
Visuals
I enjoy the look of Disintegration and its locations. Each outdoor area has huge open views with beautiful backdrops that I have found myself staring at in appreciation. Playable areas are likewise great to look at and feature a glorious amount of destructible cover that explode into satisfying bits as you engage enemies! Each of your robotic crew manages to have their own unique look and personality that get conveyed well through body movements and tone. Texture work also seemed well done with no surfaces really standing out for being super low res or out of place.
Audio
The audio work in Disintegration is also enjoyable. Voices for integrated characters are done through a filter to help them have a subtle robotic tone and results are far better than you would expect. Voice work for the non-integrated cast is also well done and comes across without sounding overly corny. The sounds of battle and the hum of your gravcycle all blend together in a perfect balance so no one sound overpowers the rest. To tie up the package is the game’s soundtrack, which accommodates the on screen action perfectly!
What It Could Have Done Better
Even though I had an enjoyable time with Disintegration and it left me with an overall positive impression, there are a few things I hope they improve for its inevitable sequel. The most important area I would like to see improved is in squad handling. Unlike a number of early squad-based games that give you individual command of your units, like Freedom Fighters, any command you issue aside from abilities is given to the whole crew. Due to this system, you can’t set up a good fire and flank system which becomes very apparent on higher difficulties. There is also the unintended consequence of waiting for the last unit to arrive to open crates. Seriously, I watched in amusement as I gave the open command to my team to have one of them get blocked in pathing and be the last to arrive at the object and open it up. Upping movement speed a bit will also go a long way for some players out there who might not appreciate the methodical pace. I would also love to see more world building in the next outing that further dives into the integration process and the rise of the Rayonne, as it's just kind of glanced over here.
Verdict
In the end, I find Disintegration to be a great first outing for a new story and IP. The world is interesting and squad-based combat entertaining even if it’s a little slower and shallow than many might like. With all these key pieces in place, it will be fun to see how they are refined and improved for subsequent entries. This will be a franchise to keep an eye on moving forward!
