Inversion

Overview

Inversion is a cover based third person shooter from Saber Interactive for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Taking place in the future, the story follows Davis Russel, a hotheaded young cop who witnesses the invasion of his planet by an unforeseen enemy called the Lutadores. Davis Russel must fight through mysterious anomalies and the invasion in order to find Davis’ missing child.

Gameplay

Inversion plays very much like a traditional third person cover based shooter. The main draw to Inversion's gameplay comes from the player's ability to manipulate gravity. Players can use the arm mounted Gravlink gun to use bursts of either low or high gravity.

Low gravity in combat situations allows the player to either pull enemies out from cover or use objects in the environment as weapons. Out of combat however, it can be used to solve basic environmental puzzles and clear paths. High gravity in combat can be used to force enemies to their knees and root them to a spot. The player can also make use of high gravity to pull down objects and form cover.

Most of the ablities that player gets from the gravlink are used in much the same way by the enemies. For instance, enemies can use the gravlink gun to pull the player out of cover, causing them to float exposed above ground.

The environment in Inversion is filled with gravity anomalies that shift gravity while the player is traversing through an area. The game is filled with zero gravity sections and places where floors and ceilings are flipped.

Inversion allows the use of both human and alien based weaponry. Most of the weapons seen in the game are slight variations of common weapons seen in most modern shooters such as:

• Assualt Rifles
• Shotguns
• Sniper Rifles
• Grenades
• Rocket Launcher
• Minigun
• Flamethrower

The campaign can also be played in its entirety in two player co-operative mode. Leo Delgado functions as the player's AI buddy when playing the single player mode.

Plot

Inversion begins with Davis Russel's opening monologue:

Can't even remember as things were before. Before war was even an idea, before they came, destroyed everything we had

and took our children as their own and made us slaves.

The game formally begins with Davis Russel and his partner Leo Delgado, who are traditional police officers in Vanguard City. The city is presented as a fictional place in near future Earth. It's Davis' daughter Leila's birthday so he decides to visit home on his break. On the way over to Davis' apartment they witness numerous explosions and people running for their lives from a large muscular man with a gun. Being cops, they decide to stop and investigate. Davis and Leo take on the assailants and manage to clear the road. At this point, Leo encounters the first gravity anomaly when he sees a milk carton floating above ground. Seeing as such technology has never been seen before, Leo begins to fear that they are being invaded by people from another planet.

All around them Earth seems to be shifting. Gravity is acting in unusual ways, buildings collapse and chunks of rubble float in mid air. Davis realizes that this "invasion" might be happening all across the city and they decide to immediately make their to his apartment. Davis finds his wife Carolina dead and fearing the worst begins calling out for Leila. The apartment building is falling apart and Leila is nowhere to be seen. They are eventually overwhelmed by the invading forces and are taken captive.

They are taken to a makeshift prison camp outside of the city where several of the humans are being held captive. Davis notices that the invaders speak an incomprehensible form of broken English. Much to his regret, Davis does not see any children being held in the camp. During their imprisonment they learn that humans are being used as slave labor to dig an enormous hole in the ground by these "Lutadores". After 35 days of being treated as slaves, they meet Fitzgerald, their new cell mate. Fitzgerald claims to have been fighting alongside his now dead brother when he was captured. He says he was with a gang of fighters going after the Lutadores leader, Kiltehr before they were ambushed. When asked by Davis if he had seen Leila, Fitzgerald claims to have seen not a single child in the city suggesting that the Lutadores might have taken them somewhere else.

A few days later, the Lutadores take Davis and Leo to the hole in the ground through a series of underground tunnels. This is where the Lutadores willingly give the Gravlink tool to Davis and Leo and point them towards another path in the tunnels. Moving forward unsupervised in the tunnels, they see mass graves of dumped bodies but once again no children. Further in, they see a flying robot burst out of the ground and attack the Lutadores. Davis realizes that they have been presumably sent underground to deal with the robot. Taking down the robot leaves Davis injured and bleeding.

Back at the cell, Fitzgerald states that the wounded and sick don't last long in the camp and that they should make their escape as soon as possible. Fitzgerald provides Leo with a lockpick and assures him of creating a diversion for their escape. Davis and Leo sneak out of the prison and into the camp but are forced to leave Fitzgerald behind. Their stealthy escape does not last long however when they are attacked by a Lutadore Captain and his squad. After barely fighting off the Lutadores, Davis passes out due to his injury. Leo manages to patch up Davis and also find Gravlink tools left behind by the Lutadores. Their only way of escape out of the camp seems to be through the tunnels underground. Once inside the tunnels, they decide to go through the hole created by the flying robot in their earlier encounter. Upon exiting the camp they are immediately attacked by surprised Lutadores. The Lutadores use a huge drill machines (Terraformer) to dig their way onto the surface and thus create pathways for their allies.

After escaping the assault, Davis insists on searching for his daughter and Leo begrudgingly follows along. They reach the apartment but Leila is again nowhere to be found. Davis is distraught with grief and Leo assures him that they will do whatever it takes to find his daughter. Leaving the apartment building they see a group of humans fighting off the Lutadores. After helping out the human fighters, Davis is introduced to Banks, the leader of the squad he calls the "Free People". Banks says they are gathering humans all around and fighting back. When Davis asks him about Leila, Banks suggests that she might have been taken to Camp T'Kal. They mutually agree to help each other to get to Camp T'Kal.

Banks asks Davis and Leo to infiltrate a nearby Lutadore base and find any information pertaining to the location of Camp T'Kal. Davis and Leo fight their way through and come across the leader of the base called "The Butcher". After defeating the butcher they question him about the location of the children. The butcher mumbles something about a Prophet and says that the children are at the eastern edge of the city. Davis radios Banks with the information but gets no response. Upon leaving the base they see that Banks' squad has been pinned down by Lutadore mortar fire. On the way towards Banks' positon, Davis meets up with Fitzgerald again, who claims to have escaped in the confusion after he helped them escape the prison camp. Banks orders Davis and Leo to take out the mortar while the rest of the squad finds a functioning APC for transport. Later, Davis and Leo are then tasked with escorting the APC safely out of the city towards Camp T'Kal.

On the way over to the east side, the squad tries to makes sense of how the Lutadores are capable of manipulating gravity. None of them seem convinced at how such "barbarians" could've managed to figure out gravity manipulation. One of them suggests they might be from another Planet where gravity anomalies are a norm. Banks immediately squashes their discussion however, stating that none of them are intellectuals and that they should stop wasting time theorizing. He states their only job should be to drive the invaders back to wherever they came from. When asked by Leo to weigh in on the situation, Davis quickly reaffirms to care only about his daughter. The APC gets constant mortar barrages when they are closer to Camp T'Kal and are forced to stop.

Banks orders Fitzgerald to protect the APC while rest of the squad moves up through the Lutadores defenses. After clearing out their defenses, Banks suggests that the squad should split up. Banks, Davis and Leo head up into the camp to see if they can find any info on Leila. While the rest of the squad holds the position and tries to repair the damaged APC. The three of them now make their across a chasms and cliffs towards Camp T'Kal. Davis gets separated from the group as the land around them shifts and they decide to meet up later. You meet at the end, where Banks comments that Camp T'Kal might the command and control for the whole show. He claims taking this camp out would potentially stop the entire Lutadore invasion. They notice some noise in the vicinity and discover it's a young boy named Peter who's being hiding out. Davis asks the boy if he has seen Leila. But Peter says there are hundreds of children in the camp and that he can't really be sure. Peter says the Lutadores were going to take all the children to a place called "station". Davis being emotionally distressed aggressively questions the boy to point out the location of the station. Peter points to a massive floating mass of objects out in the distance and claims the Lutadores take all the children down into a hole in the earth. At this point Davis and Leo part ways with Banks. Banks takes Peter with him back to the APC and wishes Davis luck in finding Leila.

Davis and Leo now have to make their way into Camp T'Kal to get over to the "station". Once they are inside the camp, one of the human prisoners (visibly insane from being imprisoned) informs them that the Lutadores have the humans collared and whipped. He says that they have killed most of the prisoners who do not obey their masters and act like slaves. Moving further into the camp, they see several dead humans hanging from ceilings. They eventually reach the room where the children were being held and find it deserted. Leo comments that they are probably taking children because they can't have their own. They walk across rows of prison cells, where seemingly indoctrinated humans are being held. These "humans" have collars on their necks and appear to have no memory of their past lives. As Davis and Leo move past these cells, the indoctrinated humans begin to speak in a monotone voice.

Reject your sinful nature, submit to the will of the rightful Master and join us. The hand of the master cures the pain, it gives you liberation...The Master can save you...save you from your sufferings.

Making past the rows of cells, they enter an enclosed arena. They meet the Slave Driver who pits his indoctrinated slaves against Davis and Leo. After defeating the slave driver Davis manages to scavenge a High Gravity module off his dead body, which allows him to upgrade the Gravlink gun. They make their way out of the camp and are attacked by a much larger force of Lutadores. They are forced into using a Terraformer to literally dig a hole and escape the onslaught. The terraformer digs its way into the gravity well which Peter mentioned was the station. Making their way across the zero gravity chasm, Leo remarks at its enormous size and is amazed at how the Lutadores could have managed to dig such a deep hole. Leo presumes that it would take years to dig so much and that they couldn't have accomplished such a task on their own.

After making their way across the chasm, they now have to find a way to get down towards the hole in the ground that Peter claims is the station. As they are traversing through the varying gravity fields they find large metallic cells lined on the floors. Davis suggests that this might be the source of the power that's controlling gravity. He thinks Lutadores are digging holes to put these cells into the ground and then control gravity. He thinks they can stop the Lutadores if they find where these cells are being made.

They fight their way across several hordes of Lutadores and eventually get to a series of high tech metallic tunnels like nothing they have seen before. They are greeted by a computer voice that warns them of contamination and activates defenses to protect the "core". At this point, Davis and Leo are unsure about what exactly is going on. On exiting the tunnels, they realize that the "station" is a technologically advanced underground railway station used for transport. They see the indoctrinated humans being used as slave labor on the station's loading platform. Once again Davis and Leo are amazed that the Lutadores could construct such an enormous station and keep it hidden deep underground.

They overhear the Lutadores talking about transporting slaves in the train and decide that Leila might have been taken along with them in the train. Following the train takes them to an area the computer refers to as "Zone 143". Getting off the train they notice, all of the Lutadores guarding the station are dead. Leo thinks they might have been attacked by the flying robots and Davis agrees speculating that the robots are essentially guarding the place.

They fight both Lutadores and the flying robots to once again make their way through tunnels to get to the surface of Zone 143. Flying through the zero gravity zones they notice that the entire place is repairing itself. Leo comments on how he has never seen this sort of technology before. Davis still doesn't seem to understand why the Lutadores and the robots are fighting each other. It is at this point made clear that humans are just part of some larger war between the Lutadores and the robots. Davis and Leo enter a large domed area which seems to be presented as a viewing chamber. Davis opens the shutters to bring in some light and they see a series of gigantic domes covering cities. At this point they come to the realization that the city of Vanguard is under a huge dome floating in Space while being connected to an enormous spaceship.

They realize that they have been lied to their entire lives. Leo begins to question their entire existence. In an effort to calm Leo, Davis tells him that they should just focus on finding his daughter and deal with this larger issue later. At which point Leo vehemently claims that Leila isn't out there and that this is just a waste of time. They eventually reconcile and arrive at the conclusion that the train acts as transport between the domes on the spaceship. They decide to keep moving forward and look for Leila. Upon exiting the train station, they reach the surface and enter what seems to be the "Lutadore Dome". Davis sees the children being escorted by the Lutadores out of the station.

They fight their way across the Lutadore territory and overhear that the children are being transported on barges to the capital. After getting hold of a transport barge they follow the children deeper towards the Lutadore city. They keep following the slave transport always being one step behind. Navigating through zero gravity environments, they notice that much of the Lutadore city has very similar structures to a human city. Davis concludes that the domes must have been built by the same person and were probably identical replicas at one point in the past. Leo then begins to question whether the Lutadores were human before all this started.

Inside the Lutadore citadel they find rows of cages with children. Davis begins to search for Leila among the children and realizes that she's not there. Just as Davis begins to loose hope he hears a voice calling out for help. Running around the corner to check, he gets ambushed and knocked out by the Lutadores. Upon regaining consciousness Davis and Leo realize they are strung up as sacrifice in a large area surrounded by angry Lutadores, while their leader Kiltehr gives a somewhat incomprehensible speech. Kiltehr claims that the humans should be sacrifice for the "lords" that built the dome. He wants the "lords" to take this offering and rid the Lutadores of their suffering. The sacrifice is timely interrupted when Banks and his squad burst into the city center. Kiltehr surprised by the large force of humans decides to make his escape. The squad unties Davis and Leo and Banks orders them to deal with Kiltehr while the rest of the squad handles the Lutadores.

Davis and Leo purse Kiltehr through more tech chambers and tunnels, fighting the Lutadores and flying robots on their way. Kiltehr begins to claim that he is the supreme being and that he should have control over Inversion. Their pursuit eventually leads them to an area the computer refers to as the Inversion Energy Distribution center. They enter a larger circular dome shaped room, in the center of which is a comparatively small pulsating ball of energy. Davis suggests that this might be the engine room of the spaceship. After being backed into a corner by David and Leo, Kiltehr sets the Inversion worldship to self-destruct, deciding that if he's going down, he's going to take every single habitat dome down with him.

Davis and Leo manage to take down Kiltehr before he could fully shutdown the Energy Distribution center. However, at the very last second Kiltehr drags Davis down with him into the pit below the energy bubble. As Davis falls to his death, Leo manages to use the override key just in time to avert shutdown and restore inversion. The computer then states that the former route has been reactivated with an estimated arrival 8273hrs.

With Kiltehr dead, the Lutadores all throw down their weapons and give up. Those of the humans that survived are set free to return to what remains of their former lives.

The game ends with Leo's monologue.

Their victory was hollow, they had lost their wives and children, lies that they had been living for years had been exposed.

The ship was saved, but with no idea as to where it was headed. But for now, the surviving members were safe inside their

domes.

Leo reveals at the very end that he had found Leila dead while they were searching for her in Davis' apartment, but couldn't bring himself to tell Davis. In a sequence after the credits, an arm is shown climbing out of the pit in the engine room, indicating that Davis is still alive.

Story Missions

Prologue: Inversion

Chapter 01: Vanguard Down

Chapter 02: Caged

Chapter 03: Breakout

Chapter 04: Road Home

Chapter 05: Street Fight

Chapter 06: Road to Hell

Chapter 07: Edge of the World

Chapter 08: Into the Depths

Chapter 09: Enlightenment

Chapter 10: Reveal

Chapter 11: Red Sky

Chapter 12: Deja Vanguard

Chapter 13: Reversion

Multiplayer

Inversion features a variety of multiplayer modes such as

• Deathmatch
• Team Deathmatch
• Hourglass - A variation on the popular King of the Hill mode. The maps flip upside down based which team is in the lead, forcing players to constantly adjust their orientation.
• Survival - A four player co-op mode where players try to survive a three staged map within a given time limit.
• Gravity Slaughter - Players receive bonus points for getting creative kills using the Gravlink gun,
• King of Gravity - One player has the advantage of using a super power Gravlink gun, while all other players are fighting to be the "King of Gravity".

Enemies

Lutadores

They are the most common enemies in Inversion, equipped with Assualt Rifles and Shotguns. Occasion ally players will encounter Lutadores equipped with metal scrap shields.

Lutadore Captain

These enemies are the essentially the only ones with Gravlink gun access. They are able to manipulate gravity on a whim as much as the player.

Behemoth

These are larger hulking versions of the Lutadore. They are heavily armored and usually carry a minigun.

Security Bot

This flying robot is the largest version of the robots that attack the player. They are occasionally accompanied by much smaller flybots.

Terraformer

The terraformer is basically a large drilling machine that the Lutadores use to dig tunnels underground. On occasion they use it as transport to deliver their troops onto the surface.

The Butcher

The butcher is much similar to a Lutadore Captain, however he attacks with a mech. Similar to the captain he has access to the Gravlink gun.

Slave Driver

The slave driver is a potbellied Lutadore who shields himself with heavy gravity and uses a whip. He is responsible for the indoctrination of the slaves.

Slaves

These are basically indoctrinated humans that only attack when the Slave Driver is present. They are predominantly melee attackers and on occasion carry explosives that blow up when in vicinity of the player.

Brutes

These enemies are a larger version of the Butcher, with Gravlink powers as well as a flamethrower.

Levels

• Prologue: Inversion
• Chapter One: Vanguard Down
• Chapter Two: Caged
• Chapter Three: Breakout
• Chapter Four: Road Home
• Chapter Five: Street Fight
• Chapter Six: Road to Hell
• Chapter Seven: Edge of the World
• Chapter Eight: Into the Depths
• Chapter Nine: Enlightenment
• Chapter Ten: Reveal
• Chapter Eleven: Red Sky
• Chapter Twelve: Deja Vanguard
• Chapter Thirteen: Reversion

PC System Requirements

Minimum:

• OS:Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
• Processor:Intel Core2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2GHz
• Memory:2 GB RAM
• Graphics:NVIDIA Geforce 8800, ATI Radeon 2900 XT, 512 mb Graphics Memory
• DirectX®:9.0c
• Hard Drive:5 GB HD space
• Additional:Internet connection required for online matchmaking.

Recommended:

• OS:Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
• Processor:Intel Core2 Quad, AMD Phenom X4 9950, 2.6GHz
• Memory:3 GB RAM
• Graphics:NVIDIA Geforce GTX 460, ATI Radeon 5850, 1gb Graphics Memory
• DirectX®:11
• Hard Drive:5 GB HD space
• Additional:Internet connection required for online matchmaking.