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Defiance
Trion’s Defiance, sister game to the upcoming SyFy cable show of the same name, has the MMO shooter thing working on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
I have no qualms remaining about whether Trion can pull off action-packed first-person shooting in a massively multiplayer context, with dynamic public events pushing players to cooperate with each other against a deadly alien menace. I’ve played it, it works, and it’s an action game through and through. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was waltzing through a shooting gallery, though, as the combat never reached the fever pitch that exceptional shooters boast.
Throughout the instanced co-op mission I played at E3 and its caverns filled with foes that manned turrets, bore shields, and fired rocket launchers, I had a fine time. The enemies presented little challenge, though, as their AI never made much use of cover or tactics more complicated than “shoot at the players.” This is a problem that could well be remedied by the time that Defiance launches later this year, and in fact it may already be – press demos are routinely tuned to be exceptionally easy. Still, what I saw has me slightly concerned.
I also blasted my way through a public event that had aliens raining from the sky across an entire open-world zone. After gunning down dozens of monsters around a few of their landing zones, we activated the boss battle for the event: a towering alien hive constantly spewing green death bolts and spawning more of the smaller enemies. Here again, there was nothing wrong with the action. I blew up enemies with grenades, used my sprint ability to evade danger, and shotgunned a whole lot of bad guys in the face. The diversity between the tough burrowing melee aliens, the small skittering spider-like ones, and the poison-spitting ones added some welcome variety to the combat.
Qualms aside, I love the idea of a co-op shooter in a persistent world that features dynamic, public events like what I’ve already seen in Defiance. If Trion can crank up the dial on the action front, this could fill its own niche alongside the other MMO shooters creeping toward release – especially on console, where the only competition is CCP’s unapologetically hardcore PS3 exclusive Dust 514.
Defiance comes out in April 2013. Make sure to check out the new screenshots and videos released yesterday for this year’s E3 as well.
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