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Fuse

Fuse Hands-On

Crazy weaponry, aliens, and a colourful universe. Insomniac bring some familiar elements to their multi-format debut.

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There is a distinct lack of hype surrounding Insomniac Games' first venture into the world of multi-format. It's strange given the pedigree the studio comes with, but perhaps there are reasons as to why Fuse has yet to capture the imagination of gamers.

Fuse was first announced back at E3 2011 as Overstrike by EA. After the announcement trailer we didn't see or hear anything of Fuse until it resurfaced at PAX Prime in September. Silence is usually not a good sign, but it seems Insomniac worked hard in the meantime putting together a game worthy of a bit more attention than what it's been getting.

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At its core Fuse is all about co-operative gameplay and combining the special abilities of the four playable characters. The squad, Overstrike 9, as they're called, have gotten their hands on Fuse powered weaponry (some sort of alien tech) - and this is where Insomniac's heritage of over the top and unusual weaponry comes into play.

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Your squad is made up of:

Dalton Brooks: A tank-like character whose Fuse weapon is capable of creating a shield that deflects enemy fire while allowing friendly fire to pass through.

Isabelle Sinclair: More of a support class character as she is capable of throwing out healing grenades and her Fuse weapon is the shatter gun that freezes and elevates targets, setting them up to be finished off by one of her squadmates.

Jacob Kimble: Does a lot of damage with his Arcshot, but he can also lay deadly traps and he should be the player set up by his squadmates to be in a position to finish off difficult mini-bosses and the like.

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Naya Deveraux: Your stealth and close combat specialist, but she also carries a Fuse powered rifle that is capable of creating singularities.

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Now, ideally you'd have four human players each understanding the respective roles in the squad and you'd have a lot of fun mixing and matches abilities and weaponry to best effect against the aggressive enemies that overflow the levels of Fuse.

However, in this press demo, Insomniac had devised a slightly different plan. Journalists were paired up to play two players with two AI controlled character in order to allow us to switch characters on the fly using the "leap" feature. It reminded me in a way of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, and if you're playing solo this is a good way of being able to switch characters as your faced with different obstacles. The logic was simple, press were to be given a taste of each of the characters, but perhaps it wasn't the most favourable look at the game. This is a game meant to be played with human players by your side, and even if the AI is something Insomniac has worked hard on - the frantic nature of Fuse didn't really allow for tactical thinking and switching of characters, as you were constantly being overrun by various mechanical foes.

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Speaking of overrun, we were given a first glimpse of the "Horde-like" Echelon mode, a mode the developer admitted was yet to be properly balanced. In one word, it was brutal. Typically when developers demo a game they turn the difficulty down - you don't want the first taste a games journalist gets of your game to be that of instant deaths and frustration. We're a fickle bunch and bruising our self esteem is not in a developer's best interest. In the first run of Echelon, me and my co-player only made it through a couple of waves.

Unlike Horde, Echelon is trying to be more dynamic giving players various objectives round-by-round - it could involve simple things like eliminating enemies, taking out a mini-boss/boss (these appear at round 6 and 12, respectively), defending a node, and more. All rounds except for 6 and 12 have random objectives so players need to be on their toes - and the objective where you had to defend a fuse canister was especially challenging. You could compare it to a way more frantic version of Mass Effect 3's Galaxy at War multiplayer, even if it plays very differently.

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This mode holds a lot of potential and I can see this being a lot of fun with four well coordinated players. The hectic pace does ask a lot of the player as you still need to be making use of synergies such as using Dalton's shield to defend a canister, with the rest of the players using it for cover. The aggressiveness shown by the AI gives you very litte chance on your own as you'll need both direct benefits such as the shield and area of effect boost, to be effective.

The campaign is less intense, but still provides plenty of interesting action. If you will, this is Borderlands without all the focus on loot and RPG-like character progression. Insomniac have a lot to live up to with this release, if they manage to pull it all together during the last few months of development, then Fuse could be something of a sleeper hit this spring.

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Crazy weaponry, aliens, and a colourful universe. Insomniac bring some familiar elements to their multi-format debut.



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