Before Diablo 3's release: "This game looks too colorful now!"
Before Fuse's release: "This game looks too gritty now!"
I guess gamers really hard to please.Just because the art style has gone for a slightly more "realistic" approach does not mean the game will automatically be horrible. Insomiac hasn't let me down yet (although I haven't played Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One yet), so I'm still reasonably excited for the release. I loved the Resistance games even though they had the gritty, alternate reality 1950s feel to them. Count me still excited, I actually thought this game was dead seeing as there hadn't been word on it for over a year.
Anyway, I found a link on the decision to change art style (its from IGN, don't kill me): http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/12/why-did-overstrike-become-fuse
Six months ago, Insomniac realized Overstrike wasn?t quite working. The core idea was sound ? a four-player shooter where each co-op player has a unique role in combat and has a useful role in the story ? but something was missing. Little did the developer realize the solution had been sitting in front of them the entire time: the Fuse substance was a story element, but it didn?t play an active role in the form and function of playing Overstrike. When it became both the motivation for the characters as well as the source of their distinct powers, Overstrike became Fuse, and Fuse scrapped its cartoonish aesthetic for something a little more grounded.
If you didn?t see our impressions already, we love it.
But why did the transition happen at all?
With Fuse?s more photo-realistic visuals and altered story came new weapon forms and amplified violence. Enemies melt, explode into chunks, spray blood when they?re cut, and wobble their backward heads after unsettling neck-break animations. ?Me, personally? I love this s?t,? says Ted Price, founder and CEO of Insomniac Games. With Overstrike, ?we couldn?t unleash.? And this isn?t uniquely tied to gore.
The heroes of Fuse are barely heroes at all. They?re all deeply flawed, and their group, Overstrike 9, is hardly a team at all. They?re mercenaries who happen to organize together, and some have personal histories with each other. They?re the grown-up version of a ragtag motley crew, each with disturbing (not just dark) pasts. Jacob Kimble, for instance, is a former LAPD cop ? ?former? because his black-and-white brand of justice once involved locking a child-killer in the trunk of a car and burning him alive. Dalton Brooks, on the other hand, used to work for the terrorists he?s hunting down.
At the same time, Price says ?We are not trying to be an ultra-realistic game, period. That is not our space. We love having games that are grounded, but we make big nods to sci-fi and more pulp influences.? It?s a balance of ?a game that has humor but isn?t taking itself completely seriously.?
Internally, ?It took a lot of us learning about who the audience is halfway through,? Price says. Violence ?has such a freeing effect, in terms of doing cool stuff with the weapons, compared to the more restricted, light-hearted T-rated game.?
Fundamentally and philosophically, though, Fuse is Overstrike. There was no major change to the mechanics, and the Xbox 360 didn?t pose problems for the traditionally PlayStation-exclusive team. Price is proud of his team?s game and excited about the new direction. Justifiably so: Fuse is, on first impression, utterly fantastic.
Ignoring all the IGN hype dribble in the article, it seems like they just wanted to unleash a bit. I am glad that Price did say he isn't going to make the game ultra-realistic however, even if the art style has gone through a very specific change.
