Cellfactor Revolution

Game Platforme(s) : PC | Language : English | Release Date : May 8, 2007
Publisher & Developer : Artificial Studios | Genre : Sci-Fiction /FPS | Size : 860 Mb

The majority of the reviews on IGN are used by you, the consumer, for one reason: to read about whether or not a game is worth buying. CellFactor: Revolution is a free game, a sort of advertisement for the Ageia PhysX card, a rather pricey piece of hardware dedicated solely to physics processing. You dont actually need the card to play, but if you dont have it youll miss out on a bunch of fancy effects. Since its free, no matter how much we dislike the game, its probably worth checking out just to see debris stuff fly around. The real question, however, is whether the PhysX card is worth buying for the sole purpose of playing Cell Factor. In response, we can answer with a definite no.

In case youre unfamiliar with the game, CellFactor: Revolution is an arena first-person shooter that lets you use bits of the environment as lethal weapons with special psi powers. Before jumping into a match you pick between three classes: the dual-wielding Guardian, hybrid Black Op, or psionically proficient Bishop. Each class has a few useful skills, like the Guardians super jump, Black Ops gravity bomb, and the Bishops ability to part large masses of objects at high speeds, knocking out any living thing in the way. The Bishop is particularly interesting because she can fly, pick up foes, and quickly crush them to death.

Using these kinds of skills in rapid succession can definitely be entertaining, but theres a problem with depth. While you can grab a guy and throw him into a lava pit, fling around gigantic cranes, and set deadly particle beams aflutter, CellFactor lacks a cohesiveness it seems like it should have. It certainly looks good, and the range of things you can do seems like it would keep the game entertaining. Yet after fifteen minutes, youre probably going to want to shut this one down. Testing each skill is like window shopping at a jewelry store. You see the baubles sparkle, appreciate their beauty, then move on. We were told this game has a story, yet theres no indication of its existence while playing through. As each class type you can wade through five missions to unlock new skills or head into a skirmish or LAN match with every skill already unlocked.

With only LAN support youre going to be spending a majority of the time playing against the CellFactor bots. At the highest difficulty these guys show sparks of intelligence, but we experience more instances of them being boring and annoying. Theyre boring when teammates or enemies run around in circles for no apparent reason during a CTF match. Theyre annoying when they kill you from all the way across the map with a machine gun, or a Bishop repeatedly performs an extremely difficult to avoid grab and crush maneuver. Many times we were shooting them at point blank range and saw no noticable reaction, aside from them dying. They seem to behave much better in Deathmatch than team games, using abilities like side dashes to avoid fire.

Surprisingly, its the games most prominent feature - the physics - that make playing such a tedious affair. Because theres so much crap flying around the screen, youll often spawn only to die within two seconds as a result of unavoidable flying junk. Sure it looks cool, but its really difficult to enjoy a first-person arena shooting where the mechanics of life and death feel so randomized. One round you might get 20 kills without dying. The next youll play just as well, but die 20 times while racking up only five kills. Its just a matter of where youre standing and how many metal boxes / larger metal boxes happen to smack into the side of your head