Xenith on 27/9/2009 at 08:59

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I played the version that came out around my parts on the 17th. To be honest, if you're expecting something as fun as Portal you will be disappointed.

IMO Twin Sector is like this: You have a bunch of things which seem to have gotten through a lot of thinking before being implemented, blown away by things which just make no friggin sense what-so-ever. Physics is so wtf-ish sometimes you wonder how they could screw it up. An example would be that you can easily control yourself with the movement keys while in the air, which kind of kills the whole idea of gravity, but you die if you fall from a height of more than 4 meters. Of course they let you move in the air so you actually have a control of where the heck you're going when you use your gloves to push yourself off the ground. This is bad anyway, because most of the time you miss the spot you're supposed to land on (like a pipe high up) due to the fact that you can't see anything when you push away... because you're looking at the bloody ground!!!! By the time you manage to get the notion of where exactly in the air you ended up, it's a bit too late to defy gravity with WASD because you're already falling. You get used to that eventually, but it does take a pretty long time and a lot of quicksave reloading.

While it's cool you can charge your gloves to a certain amount for either a push or a pull, I haven't managed to find a spot yet where you actually need just half the energy, because it seems that every does of energy used which is not maximum screws things up by not pulling things close enough, or throwing them far enough. The fact that it takes some time to charge the blasted gloves to full power means you are going to run around with an enemy after you in a small room trying to jump through a small hole while crouching in mid air. Now read that again and tell me how many times you'd try before rage-quitting. The enemies (floating iron ball of electricity) just try to ram into your head, which means you have to push them away. The problem is that you have to push yourself afterward. Now by the time your energy regenerates the enemy is almost back on your track again, which is not good. Pushing the enemy away with only half the energy, or anything below maximum, just doesn't work, because the push isn't powerful enough to give you time (and space in some cases) to work your way out of the situation.

Anyway, the good things about Twin Sector are between the moments of frustration and annoyance (which are more than plenty). However, sudden CTDs and terrible voice acting (actually the main character is ok-ish, it's the others that just annoy the brain out of your head after listening to them say the same line in the same zero-talent manner after quickloading for the 5th time) just overwhelm the fun parts and make you wish Twin Sector had been given more attention.

The puzzles are pretty much just jumping on the right thing, pushing the right button or blowing up the right thing. Nothing too complex.

The game has nice concepts, though nothing really new because you basically have a beta version gravity gun turned into gloves with the added pulling/pushing yourself moves.

I'd give it a 6/10... maybe.


EDIT: Oh, about the plot. Really it's just there so you have a reason to move around and use the gloves. It can be broken down into simple concepts like: topside gone to hell, cryosleep, woken up by the AI, shit happens, cliche stuff.