Flash Flash Revolution

Not a huge game by any standards, but a pretty good one.

Being a trophy-whore on the PS3, I decided to tackle the online trophies first, lest the community die, and I have to say it's a bit less than I expected. Brinkthegame.com did a really nice job of sugar-coating the game to make it look a lot better than it actually is.

I don't want to rip the game entirely, however. It has its high points. Take the campaign, for instance. There are two factions, one that wants to preserve the Ark, and one that wants to destroy the Ark. Given, there are two different campaign paths you can play. It's interesting to me to see a game that allows a view of both sides of the battle, something not normally done.

As for the SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) system of movement, I have to say, it's pretty sweet. You can basically parkour over the maps and it makes moving to your destination quick and cool. It is annoying, however, when you're learning the controls and want to drop down a hole. If you forget to release the sprint/SMART button, you'll grab the ledge and pull yourself back up where you started.

The online is mostly objective, as I have seen, utilizing all of the classes for different objective purposes. Medics for obvious reasons, Operatives for hacking, Soldiers to place explosive charges, and Engineers to repair bots and disarm charges.

There is a fair bit of weapon customization, allowing muzzle, front, top, and clip additions. You can change the look of your character, body type, skin color and clothing. Different body types allow for different weapons to be used while effecting mobility. Big guys are slower and can't use the SMART system as well as the little guys.

Each class has an ability tree with about eleven different upgrades. There is also an overall class upgrade page which improves reloading, stealth, and how quickly you recharge your special abilities.

After playing long enough to get to level 20/rank 5 online, I went on to tackle the campaigns. Not in the least bit what I was expecting. Usually campaigns are *completely* different stories from the online, but this was just the objective missions as a certain faction. It was rather disappointing. The only difference, really, was being able to skip the opening cinematics when playing online, and the ending cenematics once you had finished all of the non-what-if missions.

Overall, online is pretty fun if you're up for objective games. It reminds me most of MAG in gameplay, but on a much smaller scale, and Killzone 3's Operations with the cinematics. The campaigns were a disappointment because I had done all of them already. They are just the missions with bots and sometimes people.

tl;dr: Deep online objective experience. Two campaigns. 6.5/10. Not worth the $60+ I spent, but it was pretty fun.

-o24