Hybrid Beta

Hybrid by 5THCELL just recently sent me a key to try out their beta. Redeeming the key and letting my Xbox download the 1.30gig demo, I figured I’d give it a shot.

In Hybrid, you begin by choosing either the Variants (red team, basically) versus the Paladins (blue team). From there, you are equipped with various weapons and skills to take out the other squad during battles. As you rank up, new abilities are opened up to you, and your killing potential grows. Fortunately, Hybrid has plenty of maps and a lot of game modes, so the grind of ranking up your levels should not become too repetitive.

There are a couple of downfalls to Hybrid, however. The first is the Drone ability. As your kill streak grows, you unlock different robots that help you kill your enemies. While this is a cool idea on paper, it is annoying to have your enemy kill a noob teammate of yours a couple times, then unlock that scary wicked drone that hones in on you and kills you in one hit.

The actual map and game mode choosing is somewhat difficult to figure out as well. Unlike Gears of War or Halo, you do not have a definitive squad leader that chooses the starting map and etc for you. Instead, everyone in your squad has to make the decision of where you are beginning, click it individually, and then hit the confirmation button. All the extra steps could easily be reduced and make the game feel much more streamlined.

– I read somewhere that the squad can actually choose anywhere on the map and just go for it and still be in the same game, but… considering that most games do not work like that and there is no tutorial detailing this freedom, it only complicates the start up process more. Apparently, the whole point of allowing this zone self-choosing is to give you your own individual bonuses depending on where you go on the map for the games  –

Lastly, the online only feature of Hybrid is probably the biggest drawback. While the concept of fighting in real time over different territories in the game is neat, it’s frustrating when trying to play to be informed that the Hybrid servers are down. You can’t even get past the title screen during downtime. I’m hoping that this is a beta only issue and that the actual release of the game will have stable servers, but for now, I am wary of spending any money on the purchase of this title.

Here’s the website if you want to read more the actual game and follow their forums: http://www.whatishybrid.com/

If anything, I highly recommend giving the beta a try. The game is interesting enough in concept, and it does run SUPER smooth.

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