LOS ANGELES – 5th Cell, the team behind the innovative Scribblenauts, is making a third-person shooter.
Hybrid is perhaps the most original entry in the crowded genre since Gears of War. By that, I mean that it's not at all like Gears of War, which is something that can't be said for nearly every other third-person shooter to be released this generation.
It does not have free-roaming movement. Instead, you point at cover and hit A to initiate flight towards it. You can strafe in all directions while heading towards your next cover point, and you can even change the piece of cover you're heading towards in mid-flight, but at no point in the game can you freely float around in the middle of a level. Movement is automatic: You're either advancing on a position, retreating or taking cover.
On paper, it doesn't sound great, but in practice it makes for a very different, very intriguing sort of shooter. All matches are team-based, so you're always moving in tandem with teammates from cover point to cover point. Although I can't honestly say that I played enough to fully grasp the game's more intricate layers of strategy, I could see some interesting stuff emerging while I played online against 5th Cell team members.
For instance, hitting the B button causes your avatar to automatically jetpack backwards to his previously held cover position, and that frees you up to shoot at enemies while retreating. A team's effectiveness seems to rely heavily on their ability to move as a group and overwhelm the opponents, so a well-timed retreat is key to staying alive and sticking close to your comrades.
Hybrid doesn't play like other online shooters, but it shares many of the same features. There are custom loadouts and level-up meters to be filled, as is to be expected.
It remains to be seen whether Hybrid can stand up to other shooters and carve out a niche of dedicated players to fill its servers, but my first impression of the game is very positive. It's weird, it's different and it's coming from a developer with a proven track record. The game will be available as a part of the Summer of Arcade.
