Developer: Tragnarion Studios
Publisher: Bitbox S.L.
Platform: PC, Mac, Xbox360, PlayStation 3
Tested on: PlayStation 3
Scourge: Outbreak (PS3) – Review
Scourge: Outbreak is a third person shooter, developed by Tragnarion Studios. Scourge: Outbreak is co-op based and it benefits you to play with 3 friends. We have already tested the PC version before, the review of which can be found here.
Story
You are one of 4 members of Echo team, banded together to complete a mission for the Tarn Initiative. You are sent on a mission to retrieve a meteorite shard and the man holding it, Dr Reinsbeck. He has infiltrated the Nogari Corporation and will help you during your mission. As the game progresses, it will give you tidbits about the story and the motivation of the team, but not all is what it seems and the culmination of it all is seen when you finish the game.
Graphics
Here is where the game really feels sub par. When you start the game even the logos are pixelated. When you view the cutscenes you’ll notice that the pixelation is still an issue. The grainy view isn’t really helping with the cutscenes as some of them are saturated. It makes the visuals look muddled and unclear. The ingame graphics are better than the cutscenes – now that’s not something that happens a lot – though not by a lot as texture pop-in is rather commonplace. The game doesn’t always manage to keep up with the pace of the action on the screen. Screen tearing is something you can expect and the framerate drops are horrendous. The drops aren’t even during the action parts of the game, but they do occur during transitions between maps.
Sound
You have to strain to hear the music in this game. It starts playing when the action starts, but it is so quiet you’ll often not even be aware it’s playing. The voice acting is clean, a little too clean. There is hardly any room for emotion and this makes it hard to relate to the characters. Dr Reinsbeck, the man you are trying to save, doesn’t really seem all that fussed about the situation. It’s like he’s fine with being in danger. It’s unconvincing to say the least. The gun sounds are quite generic, but then again, there’s only so many things you can do to innovate gun sounds.
Gameplay
Scourge: Outbreak is tight gameplaywise. It’s a third person shooter pur sang, right up to the cover based shooting. There are some things that give the gameplay some variety and keep the game from being little more than rushing from room to room shooting enemies. The first is the fact that your team consists of 4 members, you and 3 others. Those others can be either 3 A.I. characters, 3 other players or a combination of both. The beauty is that the A.I. personas aren’t all that stupid and can hold their own, to the point that when playing on the lowest difficulty (casual), they’ll run the show. You can backseat all you want without worries and wait until the enemies stop moving. When you do feel like participating in the combat you might be downed, but still you’ll need to have little fear that the friendly A.I. is going to sit around and wait for the enemy to steamroll your team. They’ll dutifully rush over to you and heal you. They’ll pull up a shield to protect themselves and this will protect them while they are healing you.
When you are playing the medium and nightmare difficulty, you’re better off with other players, as the enemy does a lot of damage and the A.I. will have problems keeping both them at bay and reviving you. You can tag along with random players or invite friends and take down the Scourge together. Scourge: Outbreak is rather short, containing but four chapters, each of which can be cleared in a little over an hour. The guns are a little boring in the first part of the game but later on you get to handle bigger machiner: a giant gattling gun and a weapon that shoots blue orbs and blows away any enemies in its path.
Bullet impact seems a little inconsistent. One enemy might take 1 shotgun blast to go down while his clone might take 3 blasts when they are even closer. The same can be said about every weapon. Even though the game is short, it does a lot with the little it has. What at first seems like rushing from room to room killing off the same enemies over and over again, soon changes as you start encountering Scourge enemies. Upon downing the enemies you’ll gain experience. When you gain enough experience you’ll level up. There are 4 different classes in which you can rank up. Gaining certain ranks will give you boosts. You can find the boosts in the main menu though most of them are obvious, like faster reload speeds and lower revive times. Some of them are more obscure, like better accuracy while blind firing. Bosses are different from the normal enemies. They’ll start out with shields you have to take down first, or create copies and try to confuse you. Another one will use Ambrosia to heal the inflicted damage.
Ambrosia is the nectar of your armour. It allows you to use special attacks. Every member has a shield and an attacking ability. Shields will either be stationary or portable and the attack abilities can be an AoE attack or a ranged blast. This is all dependant on the character you choose. Though they might not seem like a necessity they can really help you turn the tide when they enemy surrounds you. Ambrosia is highly volatile and the vats will explode when you shoot at them. This can be used to your advantage.
Conclusion
The game doesn’t really shine in the graphics department. This is slightly improved by the sound and the gameplay is short but to the point. The normal enemies are little more than that, but the bosses are what make the game interesting. If you are looking to be wowed on a game with stellar graphics and gameplay that will last you several days, you might want to keep looking. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a game which you can enjoy with up to 3 friends for an afternoon, this might be your thing.
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