evastation is a first-person shooter title set in a dark future where players take the role of a freedom fighter. The battleground is an Earth devastated by the rapine of powerful but corrupt corporations. These giant companies control the high technology and are the masters of what remains of
society.
Against the brutal private police forces of the corporations, as well as their more skilled and dangerous operatives, the player leads a group of resistance fighters assembled from gangs, mercenaries and military operatives. As the Resistance leader, the player must assemble an army and travel the globe, restoring peace and sanity in a very dangerous world.
While Devastation is neither a role-playing game nor a real-time strategy game, the hero spends the game with a party of resistance fighters in tow. These computer-controlled characters take simple orders: guard, follow, attack and defend. They also have special skills like stealth, surveillance, hacking and sniping. These characters are often key to clearing a given level.
The game play of Devastation is enhanced by something called the MathEngine Karma physics system. What it does is allow realistic object physics. What that means to the player is seeing a larger variety of villain deaths and playing in a more interactive world. Most of the world (except the windows) can be shot, and lots of the items in it can be moved. Bottles can be broken and used as weapons. Boxes can be thrown to lure enemies into ambushes. And litter can be scattered to serve as an early warning system of approaching bad guys.
Cool graphics enhance killer action
Given the state of the world these days, it is always nice to play a game when there is no doubt that the hero is on the right side and that all the people he is gunning down deserve to die. And there are lots of enemies to kill. Soldiers and heavies wait around most corners and behind nearly all
the doors. In fact, there are so many people to kill that players need to advance slowly through the levels, often throwing trash and barrels ahead of them to draw the enemies from hiding. Simply charging forward leads to being overwhelmed.
Of the 20 single-player levels, the best are the ones where the players get to stalk the bad guys. The levels where the player and his army must defend a position are not as much fun because the computer AI is not very good on attack. The enemies will seek cover and snipe on defense, but they tend to charge blindly on when attacking, which is particularly silly when they are armed with a two-by-four and the player's character is wielding a submachine gun. Sadly, the player's own army members tend to fight the same way, although the controls allow army members to be handed any of the player's guns, so they don't have to fight with pieces of wood.
The physics system makes for some interesting moments. The ability to pick up and strike opponents with so many different things out of the environment is really useful only for style points. Most of the time, it is best to simply employ the best gun available than to try to beat someone up with a chair. On the other hand, it is pretty cool to see a bullet blast knock a bad guy into a barrel, and then see him crush it and roll off it as he dies.
Despite some rough edges here and there, I really liked this game. There were lots of people to kill and lots of guns to do it with.
— Eric
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