Review for E. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 10/04/2018
Presented at E3 2017, Extinction immediately stood out for the frenetic style of play, comparable in some ways to other titles, such as Attack on Titan, from which it seems to have taken great inspiration. The boys of Iron Galaxy Studios, already known for Killer Instinct, have worked hard in the development of Extinction, arriving at the launch with a product that is in some ways valid but in others perhaps too immature.
Protect the cities from the Ravenii
The world of Extinction is introduced by a series of preliminary missions where the basic mechanics are explained to us, accompanied by a brief description of the main plot of the game. Our hero, Avil, is the last sentry able to fight the Ravenii, imposing giants with orcish features and therefore the only one who can stand between these immense orcs and the survival of the human race itself. From the point of view of the plot, however, we were not impressed, in fact it is simply various missions to be completed in sequence, without a real progression of the story and therefore without any cut scenes in the interlude.
Our task will therefore be to protect all the cities of the kingdom, avoiding the extinction (hence the name of the game) of them. At each mission we will be able to find at the top right a percentage that will normally start from 100% and that will tend to decrease as the city is destroyed by the Ravenii, forcing us to organize ourselves in the best possible way to face the most problematic situations.
In the city, however, we will often find many citizens scared and in need of help that we will have to help, sometimes even just to complete some objectives imposed by the game. To save them, a sorceress has created special teleportation crystals, which we can use to save small groups of civilians, having the foresight to first kill the small orcs that will tend to spawn at regular intervals near them.
Fast-paced gamaplay but ...
The gameplay, which should be the strong point of the production, looks good albeit with the classic defects of the case. The idea behind Extinction allowed developers to program a extremely fast-paced and fun combat system in the first hours of the game, which, however, tends to fall into monotony in the following hours. The fights with the small orcs are based on attacks and combos that we will unleash with the powerful blade of Avil which after killing, rescuing civilians and destroying orc armor, tends to charge with power and acquire the capacity "Lethal Strike" which allows our hero to kill the Ravenii.
Before facing a Ravenii, it will therefore be vital to fill a good part of the blade's energy bar, so as to be ready for the kill. The fights with the Ravenii are divided into two main moments: immobilization and killing. At the first stage, it will be necessary destroy any protections present on the limbs of orcs for make weak points accessible and then proceed with the amputation of the legs and possibly also of the arms, so as to be safe, since a single blow from Ravenii can kill us instantly.
As soon as the ogre is weak and unable to move we can proceed with the execution, which we will have to complete in a short time since the limbs will tend to regenerate in a short time. To kill a Ravenii, we will have to climb on him to reach his real weak point, which is the neck, which we will initially have to free from any armor and protections. As soon as we have freed the neck we can proceed to kill the ogre, as long as we have completely filled the "Lethal Blow" bar.
The Ravenii killing system, while fun and rewarding in the first hours of the game, ends up being monotonous and not at all satisfying once you have learned the movements of the enemies and understood the mechanism to kill orcs quickly and easily. From the point of view of the level of challenge, we can be quite satisfied, in fact we have encountered a gradually increasing difficulty that is always accessible, as long as you organize all the attacks and waste as little time as possible.
Graphically not impressive
From a graphic point of view, Extinction did not leave us very impressed, in fact, even if the artistic sector is pleasant and of considerable quality, the final graphic rendering is approximate and not at all memorable. Overall we found problems in the textures of some environmental objects and some terrains, which are decidedly not very detailed and with a small number of objects, it will in fact be easy to come across some areas lacking items, houses but also of simple vegetation.
From the point of view of fluidity, however, we did not encounter any problems, in fact the game engine can easily handle even the most critical game situations, especially when houses and trees are wiped out by the Ravenii. Problems instead on the camera front that with good but not excellent management, manages to manage all simple situations but ends up disorienting in the most frenetic scenes and in the most excited fights.
Another drawback that plagues the production of Iron Galaxy Studios are certainly some bugs and glitches that undermine the gaming experience. The latter are especially noticeable during the fights with the Ravenii, in fact it will be very easy to come across interpenetrations due to which you could even die, or fall during a climb on the back of the ogre. All in all Extinction, albeit lacking from the graphic point of view, did not particularly disappoint us from a technical point of view, which never gave big signs of slowing down and carried us on for hours of gameplay without data loss, fatal bugs or other. .
Extinction is certainly an ambitious project that was only partially successful, above all due to a banal plot, not very thorough and seasoned with a scarce variety of missions and fights, which are of a disarming beauty given the many combos, but which lead to repetitiveness already after a few hours of play. Even from a technical point of view we were only partially satisfied: in fact, even if the fluidity is excellent, the graphic sector did not seem to us the best, given some textures and some decidedly not very detailed polygonal models. The only great salvation of the graphic sector is given by the artistic sector, which with a colorful style and with a properly cared for characterization of the characters manages to involve from the first minutes.
► Extinction is an Action-type game developed by Iron Galaxy Studios and published by Modus Games for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 10/04/2018
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