[Xbla] Hybrid Review

[Lekon]

Title: Hybrid
Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
Developer: 5th Cell
MSRP: 1200 MSP through Xbox Live
ESRB: Teen
Editor: James "Lekon" Barry

What's Hot: A new view on cover shooters, some great weapons, and a persistent online goal aside from prestige classes.

What's Not: The drones tend to get in the way more than help, long load times between matches.

Much like Awesomenauts changed the way we look at multiplayer arena games, Hybrid brings a new take on an established genre. In this case, 5th Cell handles many of the problems with run and gun by taking the run out of cover based shooters. This removal, mixed with the addition of jetpacks and relative gravity ends up creating a charming new take on the third person cover shooter.

Shoulder rush!

In Hybrid, you'll choose to side with the Variants or the Paladins, in a world wide conflict over a resource called Dark Matter. This ongoing conflict helps give a purpose to the usual points chasing, as the world is split up into various battlefields with specific bases in each area. Each country's bases are split into categories such as Tactician or Assassin, corresponding with the passive skills each character can pic. Keep fighting on bases of your favorite passive skill, and that skill levels up, allowing you to gain more from the skill until the season resets.

Once a battlefield is chosen, players are moved to a lobby, and here one of the snags hit. On average the lobby find seemed to be 30 seconds, with a few going upwards of five minutes before games were joined. Past this snag, the game lobbies were easy to navigate, having players choose a preferred game type from usual standard game types, capture the object, death match, king of the hill, as well as a mode named "Overlord" where players try to keep a kill streak going long enough to be crowned champion.

One of these two will not land gracefully

Once in the match, you'll choose a weapon, active ability, and passive ability, before heading into combat. Here Hybrid shines, with the weapons ranging from the obvious (Auto shotguns, burst fire rifles) to the odd (A launcher that does damage over time in a radius, even through walls) to the strangely fun (The Gambler, a gun that either 1 hit kills an enemy, or explodes and takes you out. Good luck, and don't miss). Active abilities range from temporary infinite ammo, poison rounds, to flash grenades and drone hacks. There's even a self destruct for those feeling like taking a few enemies with them. Passives are leveled up based on the battles you've done, and let you focus on things such as faster experience gain, or more damage in your shots.


All games take place in 3 vs 3 matches, the small sizes making for a much quicker and condensed experience. The matches don't take long, and the progression systems always feel like you're getting something for your time. During the match, players are stuck to cover for the most part, popping out to fire, though of note is the lack of any movement outside of the jetpacks seen in the screenshots. A player outside of cover dies incredibly quickly, so the games become quite sneaky in risk/reward for when to pop out, and when to try and fly in to go for the kill. Almost every map has cover spots hidden on walls, or upside down on ceilings. As long as you are looking near a cover spot, it will light up to let you know where you'll land.

Hybrid's killstreak rewards come in the form of bots, a stalker which fires alongside you, a warbringer that seeks out and shoots at enemies, and lastly a flying ninja that will seek out the nearest enemy for a quick kill. On the downside, often the war bringer ends up blocking your shots, and the stalker causes you to move around it while in cover, leaving you out in the open for far too long.

Possibly the worst position possible for a Paladin

It should be noted there is a micro-transaction system in Hybrid. Luckily there is no pay to win. Instead, micro transactions allow players to unlock items early. Normally, anytime you level up, you're given a choice from a category. For example, one level up might say "Shotgun unlock" which will let you choose your favorite one to take with you from that point on. The micro transactions allow you to unlock any item from any category, as well as leaving them unlocked when a player rolls over their level by going elite (Hybrid's form of Prestige mode). Past this small benefit, there is no bonus at all to using the cash shop in game.

Overall, Hybrid is a fun experiment with the cover based shooter. While there are some annoyances, the overall package is a good one. If you have a friend or two who can reliably join you for matches, Hybrid is easy to recommend. If you're going solo and relying on public game match ups, it's a bit harder to recommend. At the moment, games are easy enough to get into, but time will show how well Hybrid's community sticks around for each season of play.

James says, "Nifty weapons, a quick pace, and a constant feel of progression help make Hybrid a fun entry in the shooter genre."

Score: 3.5 out of 5 CoGs

[PathMaster]

I saw a video of this linked awhile ago in Cog IRC, it looked like it could have been fun to play given the right people. Also looked like it could have been a pain to play with someone who was far above your skill level, more so than usual.