I have the distinct pleasure of saying that I have never seen a game like Fusion: Genesis. Or, maybe it’s displeasure? I’m not really sure. You be the judge. I’ll present to you a scenario that embodies much of the game’s quality.
The act of mining, that is gathering resources from an nearby floating asteroid, is a completely life-changing experience. Allow me the extreme pleasure of walking you through a typical mine: see asteroid, approach asteroid, tap A once, wait about 10 seconds for 100% to appear on screen, repeat as needed. And by “needed” I mean “hundreds of times over” because if I’m playing this game to the point where I’m still mining, I’m an empty shell of a human being whose lizard-brain has taken over, and only knows how to press A on an Xbox 360 controller
See what I mean? Genius!
Starfire Studios, you guys couldn’t think of anything to jazz up the mining a little? Nothing came to mind at all? You could have at least forced me to rapidly press A. At least then I’d have felt some kind of emotion as the ensuing carpal tunnel syndrome would have provoked some anger from me. Just give me something, anything to keep from falling asleep.
And I’ll fully confess that I nearly did fall asleep while playing Fusion: Gensis. At 8 PM. While drinking something caffeinated. Let me put it into perspective for you—if we had a bell curve representing this year’s videogame releases, and on one end we have Duke Nukem: Forever, then on the opposite end, we have Arkham City, Fusion: Gensis is in the exact, perfect middle. Neither bad nor good enough to inspire any kind of reaction.
It’s this kind of aggressively mediocre mise en scene that sets Fusion: Genesis apart from its peers. Really, this game is an unbelievable display of mediocrity that I never thought I’d live to see. I feel privileged to say that I have witnessed, first-hand, one of the most mediocre things to have ever existed. Not many people can say that.
It’s mediocre in such a way that I’m not sure if anyone actually worked on the game, or if the entire team poured themselves toward the goal of achieving stunning levels of “this is OK, I guess”. Had they seen the mediocre mountaintop? Was it kinda alright?
I admit, I did enjoy the music, and the visuals are at least unique. Also the tutorial had a rather endearing mad scientist bringing the game’s systems into minimal focus (a lot of things are completely unexplained). But any sort of high points are evened out by the overwhelmingly uninspired gameplay. This game is unapologetically an MMO—in all the worst ways.
Fetch quests, grind quests, escort quests. Within each category, each quest plays out exactly the same. There aren’t really any “hooks” that make one quest stand out from another. They’re all five-minute affairs that drop you off in some nameless zone, with the barest bones of an explanation as to why you need to go gather 10 of these, or escort that to over there. Over and over and over again.
At least in an MMO, I could bring some friends with me to get through the mindlessness. Not so in Fusion: Genesis. Despite the game’s billet having massively multiplayer written all over it, too. All of the marketing for this game has somehow called back to the idea that you’ll be interacting with an innumerable amount of other players. But it’s about as interactive, and massively multiplayer, as a 1000-man solitaire tournament – well, if you could run over and mess up someone else’s cards every 15 minutes. You pretty much just exist next to each other until one of you happens to have a red circle around you. In which case, a short battle ensues.
Yes, there’s PvP in this game. Rather than try to describe if it’s entertaining or not on it’s own, I’m just going to move straight into the game’s combat, as that will tell you everything you need to know about this adversarial mode of play.
Combat is pretty straight-forward. Yes, there are skills to be used, but most battles play out like this: see enemy, hold down fire, enemy also holds down fire, you swirl around each other. If you’re up against a player, you’re activating different skills that make you temporarily invulnerable, or move faster, or what have you (it should be noted that mediocrity is well enforced here too, as every skill is the visual equivalent of a Michael Bolton song). One of you blows up. Combat is over. Repeat for the next hour or so until you get so bored you fall asleep. It’s all very hum-ho, as there aren’t any flashy effects to watch, or interesting maneuvers or strategies to consider.
Why aren’t there any nuanced strategies? Because everything in this game that exists moves far too slowly, which makes it very difficult to deploy any kind of meaningful tactics. The aggressor in Fusion: Genesis always has the upper hand because it’s too easy to lock onto someone and not let go. So, it follows that combat is totally brainless, as all you have to do is hold down the fire button and swirl, fire and swirl. Going head to head with someone in this game is like watching two betta fish nip at each others fins in a 2D fishbowl.
Like everything else in this game, the premise of the combat is sound, but also like pretty much everything else in Fusion: Genesis, the execution is sorely lacking—striving boldly into the well-charted zone of mediocrity.
Fusion: Genesis is the experience of Novocaine translated into multimedia—it’s a little exciting before you’ve got it, then it just numbs you. Before you know it, you aren’t feeling anything at all. Not pain, not joy, not even frustration. It just is.
