Take on the role of a young father and husband, David Russel, who finds himself thrust into war when his peaceful city is invaded by an unknown enemy. With his daughter missing and conventional weapons and tactics all but useless, this ordinary cop and his partner, Leo Delgado, will rise up to heed the call of duty, master the fundamental forces of gravity and save the world...

Inversion is a third-person shooter that attempts to inject a little originality into the crowded marketplace by messing with gravity in certain areas of the game. Your planet has been invaded by a strange alien race that can change the force of gravity, turning walls and ceilings into areas they can walk across, as well as creating areas where they can float around to reach new environments.

The story is interesting enough. You play as David Russel, a cop who is caught up in world events as a bizarre alien race arrive and wipe out all humanity. With your cop partner, Leo Delgado, you head to your apartment to check on your wife and daughter. The city is in chaos, with buildings destroyed and human bodies littering the streets. As you enter your crumbling apartment block, you witness your wife's death, but can't find your daughter. The rest of the game sees you and Leo captured by the aliens and put to work in the mines the invaders have opened for unknown reasons. This is where you are harnessed with a gravity disrupter that allows you to blast a concentrated energy wave that makes anything in that area float. This is particularly effective later on when you blast aliens that are hiding behind cover.

Besides the gravity harness (which you can switch, later in the game, to direct a blast that doubles the gravity) you can hold two weapons and bombs to help you plough through the levels.

Probably my biggest complaint is the use of a Boss every now and then. I'm not a huge fan of this sort of game. It stops you progressing, while you attempt to work out how to defeat a seemingly impossible to beat enemy. But, once you know what you have to do, defeating them just becomes an annoyance. In addition (but thankfully this is not the case for the Boss segments) the checkpoints are not always as close as they should be. So, die in the game and you'll be transported back a little way while you complete dull tasks you've already completed (like flying down a zip wire).

Online play is a little more complicated to comment on. Despite trying several times, in the first week of release, I have yet to be able to join any games which would imply that not many people are playing this at present.

The gravity segments, where you travel through a portal to land on a building's wall/ceiling, are effectively handled and really mess with your sense of direction. But these segments are few and far between. In addition, the parts of the game where you float from debris to debris is a bit tiresome - looking for the indicated areas that you can fly to next becomes a little dull and time consuming.

The sad thing is, Inversion is not that bad a game. In fact, with a bit of polish, and a little more attention to detail, this could have been a fantastic game. All the ingredients are there. Sadly, what we end up with is a release that doesn't really shine very brightly in a marketplace packed to the rafters with very similar games.

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Nick Smithson