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Hype Train: Fracture
by Lewis O'Brien
1.7.08
Global warming is now one of the top agendas to tackle for the dominating countries in the world. Day 1 Studios take us into the future, into the year 2161 when global warming has caused a split in the United States causing a civil war between two opposing factions.

Both sides use advanced technology, the Pacificans favour genetic modifying their soldiers while the Atlantic Alliance use cybernetic enhancers. You play as Jet Brody a soldier for the Atlantic Alliance.

The main feature of this game is the use of the entrencher. This “gun” allows you to raise or lower the very ground you and your enemies stand on. Caught in a heavy gun fight with no cover? Raise the ground to give yourself cover. Elevated enemy snipers tearing you apart? Lower them down to your level. You get the idea. The AI are quick to adapt however and can quickly change tact to counter your manipulation of the ground. Many enemies also carry entrenchers, so don’t expect your cover to be consistent. As well as the entrencher you’re equipped with the usual arsenal of assault rifles, snipers, rocket launchers etc. and some very nice grenades.

The spike grenade is another eye opener that Day 1 has thrown into the mix. When it explodes the spike grenade creates huge pillars of earth that can be used to your advantage, weather it’s giving yourself a sniper position or getting to the top of a building without using the stairs.

Another type of grenade to look forward to would be the vortex grenade. As you can probably tell by the name, it creates a tornado, sucking in enemies, objects, nearby vehicles, the lot, just try not to get caught up in it yourself or else your gonna get the wrong sort of suction.

The ability to manipulate the ground has allowed the developers to input some puzzle aspects to the game. I can almost hear the groans as you read this, or maybe it’s just me, maybe you like a bit of brain work when playing video games. If, like me you don’t welcome puzzles into your shooters with open arms, take heart, the game is primarily a shooter, so the puzzle elements shouldn’t be very significant.

In the already over crowded shooter genre, this third person shooter seems to have enough unique ideas and potential to keeps it’s head above water and be a strong contender against Gears 2 when it’s due to be released in October of this year, just one month before Gears 2.

Lewis

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- Lewis O'Brien

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