Fuse (2013)

You work as a team of 4 - something that I realise is becoming a very generic amount - to stop the bad guys from using a chemical named 'FUSE' to destroy some sh*t. To be honest, I've already forgotten the story a couple days after completing the campaign, it just isn't compelling.

You start of with the team discovering four alien 'Xenotech' weapons, each one pre-designated to each of the four members of the team. The leader, Dalton, receives the 'Magshield' that produces a plasma shield and has the ability to create a burst of power to completely obliterate nearby enemies. Cool. Jacob, the other male in the group, gets a 'Arcshot' which shoots sort of like a crossbow, but when the arrow hits the target, you have the option to burn him to death. Cool. Isabelle, a female member of the group, receives the 'Shattergun' which 'freezes' the enemy with enough shots and then you or any other team mate can just shatter them to pieces. Cool. And finally, the other female member of the group (and my personal favorite), Naya. She gets the 'Warp Rifle' which creates a sort of black hole out of a person you just killed which then collapses and creates a slight explosion to knock out enemies that were close to him. You can also create a chain of "black holes" by linking enemies that you kill making it fairly easy to kill a large group of enemies standing close to one another. Cool. Only drawback is, that the 'Warp Rifle' overheats pretty quickly, which is fair otherwise she'd be virtually unstoppable.

As you progress, you pick up skill points with which you can improve your stats and learn new abilities, which really adds to the excitement of the game. Although, we didn't seem to use the extra abilities all that much, but maybe that was just us. But once you learn to use your character well, it becomes really easy and a lot of fun to kill massive hordes of enemies. And, on the off chance that you get bored of your character, you can switch to any other member of the team. I feel that the game should have done a little more to make you have to switch player and perform tasks according to the ability of each character - I didn't feel as if switching character was a necessity, just a thing you could do if it got a little monotonous for you. And it does get pretty monotonous at times.

Complete a wave of enemies, go forward a couple of room, complete another wave of enemies, pick up some ammo, complete another wave of enemies, chapter complete. Some of the chapters were a little dull and repetitive but the enjoyment of using your character's gun really offsets that, so you don't feel it all the much, it's fun. Then there are the parts in some chapters that seemed as if the difficulty just cranked to overload. It was extremely difficult, and the members of the team that are not played by you and/or your friend are just plain stupid. The don't get in cover when they're supposed to, the barely shoot the main target and a couple of other things, but those didn't annoy me as much. It really takes the fun out of the game when one of the characters is downed so many times, you have to keep dropping whatever you're shooting to go and revive him (Jacob, I'm looking at you!).

There are other guns apart from the Xenotech weapons, but really not that many. If I recall correctly, there's one shotgun, one sniper, one or two assault rifles and two handguns. But again, you barely get the chance or even want to use those weapons - the xenotech weapons are just too much fun to use. The others are basically for times where you run out of xenotech ammo.

Despite the repetitiveness, the dull story and the poor choice of weaponry. The Xenotech weapons really do a lot of offset all of that, and make the game worth a play, especially with a friend - I don't think this would be nearly as much fun playing the game alone. There is definitely a lot of room for improvement, but I'd definitely recommend it for anyone looking to play a fun all-out shooter with a friend.

STORY: 5/10

GAMEPLAY: 8/10

MUSIC: 7/10

OVERALL: 6.6/10 (round up to 7)