Extinction Review (PS4)

Killing monsters, wall climbing, gliding, and super moves.  What's it all add up to?  It's time to dive into Extinction.

Extinction is a game where you run around a town, killing trolls and rescuing people.  There are man-sized trolls that are easily killed (for the most part).  You also fight giant troll that you kill by slicing them in the back of the neck.  It's like the manga Attack On Titan minus all the charismatic teenagers and Levi.

Speaking of characters, you take the role of Avil, a sword-wielding badass.  As mentioned before, Avil can really get around.  He's able to claim walls like Spiderman, glide like Knuckles the Echidna, tree hop like a ninja, and use a rope to get higher like the kids from Attack On Titan.  The act of maneuvering itself isn't a problem.  Controlling that maneuverability is a slight problem, though.

Our protagonist, Avil.

Avil feels floaty when running.  Also, when wall jumping, it's hard to get down and if you stuck between two buildings, forget it.  And on that note...the tree hopping.  Holy crap.  There are times when you want to just drop to the ground, but your idiot avatar won't let that happen.  He'll just keep tree hopping until he runs out of trees.  It's so...derpy.  It's almost like the game is trying to be more epic than it really is.

The combat is button-mashy when fighting smaller trolls, but not really.  If you just mash buttons, you will take cheap shots and learn how weak Avil really is as some monsters will kill you is three hits.  You can upgrade Avil, but the upgrades do NOTHING.  Those red monsters who can will kill you in three hits at your weakest will still kill you in three hits when you're at your strongest.  Avil simply doesn't feel like he's getting any more powerful.

The only thing upgrading is good for is looking at this cool screen.

Then, you have the battles against giants, which are ripped straight out of Attack On Titan.  You simply climb up the giant's back and decapitate him by slicing the back of his neck with your super move.  It can be tough to get up there with the giant running, jumping, and flailing around, but it can be done.  You can also slice off their arms to keep them from destroying stuff and their legs to keep them from moving around for a bit.  These limbs will grow back, so hurry and cut off the head.  Giants can wear armor, making things slightly more difficult (and a lot more annoying).  Oh yeah, try not to get hit or stepped on as this is usually (not always) instant death.

You can target arms or legs, but slicing off the head is the only way to kill giants.

You don't necessarily fail the mission when Avil dies.  But when the town dies, you fail.  That's right.  The town you fight in has a life bar which goes down when citizens are killed and when the giants destroy buildings.   You can think of it as a time limit of sorts.

When this number hits 0, you're screwed.

Saving to save citizens is a problem.  You find these idiots standing near crystals waiting to either be saved by you or killed by trolls.  Saving them requires you to stand completely still and charge crystals to "beam" them away.  This sucks if an enemy materializes nearby, because they can kill citizens before you can rescue them or attack you, forcing you to stop charging the crystal until you fight them off.  Also, citizens often get killed and you can't do anything about it.  Either you won't know where they are or you simply won't be able to get to them before they are killed.  You simply won't be able to save everyone.  Luckily, none of them are important, so fair enough.

When saving citizens, pray that a troll doesn't wander past and kill them and/or you.

Outside of the main campaign, you get three additional game modes; Daily Challenge, Extinction, and Skirmish.  These shake things up a little, but they are largely the same.  Kill monsters, save the town, and try not to get killed doing it.

Well, on to the little stuff.  The controls are good, but you can't change them.  All you can do is look at them.  The button layout is perfectly fine, but it would have been nice for players who don't like it to change it.

You may or may not like these controls, but you'd better get used to them.

The graphics are alright, just not what I was expecting.  Everything looks too bright for such a dark subject.  I expected something darker and grittier.  The enemies don't look threatening, but slightly silly.  The cutscenes remind me of Avatar the Last Airbender, which is nowhere near being a bad thing.

Big trolls don't look too intimidating, but they can one-hit KO you.

The cutscenes are pretty good.

The music is pretty forgettable.  I think there's music, but I really don't remember.  I can't tell you whether or not it's good or shitty.  Seriously the only song I remember is on the title screen, which sounds like any old trailer for a summer blockbuster.

And there's DLC, if you want it.

Ultimately, Extinction is one of those games best described as being good in theory, but bad in execution.  There are some cool ideas here and the presentation is nice, but the gameplay is trash.  It's sad, because there is a good game under there somewhere.  Pass if you can.