The Technomancer is a new RPG from Spiders, an independent maker of games.

You play as Zachariah, a low grade technomancer. At the start of the game you do get some limited options to change your character's looks; however you can only play as a male. The game opens in Ophir, a city situated on the planet Mars. As Zach you are caught in a war between corporations and apart from the main quest there is plenty to do in sub-quests.

Overall the game is a little bit of a disappointment, mostly because it lacks heart. True it has all the ingredients to make for an interesting game, but mostly I found myself not really caring what happened to Zach, like a poor novel, there just wasn’t enough character development for me to feel that my main character was anything except mediocre and dull. Zach, as a character, is not unlike Starkiller in Star Wars: Force Unleashed, with his fancy moves and crackling electrical attacks, and yet Starkiller was a much more enjoyable character to play.

It's not that the game does not follow the tropes of the genre, but there is little here which substantially makes it stand out from the pack. Still, if you like these sorts of games you may want to take a look for yourself.

When playing, experience equals points and, as you gain points, these can be used to open up a skills tree for your four main attributes, Rogue, Technomancer, Guardian and Warrior. You can also equip any better armour or weapons that you have either taken or made. There are a number of others to play with, but mostly they feel underwhelming. The game also has a moral meter, trying to stop you killing others, but likewise this appears to have little effect on the game, so I just went ahead and killed everyone.

As you traverse the environment you will often do so with companions and since you share your inventory with them you can equip them with more powerful weapon if you have them. It’s always worth searching characters that you knock out/kill as they may have either items or the raw materials which you can take to the workbench to make new stuff.

There are a number of aids to help you explore your environment, including a quest journal (important as there are a number of side quests that you can undertake), a map of you current location and a thumbnail map of your immediate surroundings.

The game comes with a ten screen guide, including the more important trigger combinations.

It comes with the usual range of options to play with. You can’t change the gamepad settings and the use of the shoulder pads makes the game tricky to remote play with a Vita, but it will let you tinker around with some sound and brightness options.

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Charles Packer