I’ll be honest: despite enthusiastically rampaging my way through several Call of Duty campaigns, I normally have absolutely no idea what’s going on. Aside from a vague sense of the main plot points and characters, the intricacies of specific missions and military terms are often lost on me. And that’s perfectly fine, as the levels themselves are such a romp that I don’t really mind.
The same can be said for Disintegration, the debut game from V1 Interactive which releases next week. Founded by Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto, it’s easy to see how the studio ended up making what feels like an old-school shooter with a novel twist. Disintegration is a shooter with real-time strategy elements, a hybrid that allows the player to jump between playstyles at will. It’s a core gameplay experience so convincing that the campaign’s narrative – which does tend to bounce around and has its fair share of MacGuffins – takes a back seat to the action.
Still, here’s a general overview of the setting: you play as Romer Shoal, a famous Gravcycle pilot who “integrated” in order to survive a future Earth ravaged by climate change, overpopulation and disease. Integration involves the removal of your brain from your natural body into a robot. Intended to be a temporary survival measure, a nasty group called the Rayonne decided integration would actually be the future of humanity, and began forcefully integrating humans and killing any who opposed. And thus Romer finds himself fighting alongside a bunch of other outlaws in order to bring down the evil empire. The Rayonne don’t quite yell “delete, delete”, but it’s close.
