Cybermercs Demo

Interesting genre combinations are always fun to try out, but they usually disappoint when it comes to blending the mechanics together. Hence, there are only a handful games that managed to do it properly, usually put forward by respectable developers with plenty of experience. Surprises can happen, on the other hand, so it’s never a good idea to dismiss a game based on shallow assumptions.

Cybermercs combines the joy of motorized exoskeletons with classic action-RPG mechanics, as seen in the Diablo series. Albeit somewhat interesting on paper, this mixture is only attractive if certain criteria are met, because the fans of the two genres rarely have anything to do with each other and the underlying principles are fundamentally different.

The story talks about a distant future, one in which humanity managed to leave the Earth and colonize a distant planetary system in a different galaxy. As usually, the colonists soon rebelled against the government, so a war broke out between the two factions. However, a powerful race of aliens entered the picture a few years later, which made everyone forget about their differences and join forces in order to protect humanity from the threat.

Even if you control a mech, you only get to see and make use of its abilities from an isometric perspective, which is certainly not as exciting as it should be. Not only that, but the slow RPG mechanics do not really work with this particular action flavor, because all the adrenaline is lost in the process. Moroever, the role-playing fans are bound to be disappointed as well, because there aren’t nearly enough items, skills, or choices to make as there should be.

Visually, the top-down perspective leaves you unable to marvel at the machinery from up-close, but that wouldn’t be too much of a problem if the environments were interesting. Unfortunately, everything is rather bleak and uneventful, which leaves you unable to enjoy the experience properly. The same goes for the sound department as well, which is only there because it was mandatory.

Cybermercs had some pretty serious intentions right from the get-go, but it failed to capitalize on them. Instead, both of the genres it approached have been stripped down to their most uninteresting parts, while everything else was left out of the final product. Hence, unless you are on the lookout for a dull and pointless experience, you might want to search for something else.