The Technomancer Review

<p>It&&num;8217&semi;s alright to acknowledge your influences on a project&comma; sometimes&period; Games will occasionally use it as shorthand so you know what to expect&period; With <em>The Technomancer<&sol;em>&comma; it wears its influences firmly on its sleeves&comma; but feels like a hollow rendition of those better games&period; With a very focused story that doesn&&num;8217&semi;t go off the rails&comma; <em>The Technomancer <&sol;em>has the promise of a good game&comma; but under-cooked far too many ingredients&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Very little in <em>The Technomancer <&sol;em>is interesting&period; Most of it fails to even interest its own characters&period; Taking place entirely on Mars&comma; the game fails to have much to enjoy in terms of its narrative&period; Players take control of Zachariah Mancer after a very limited and brief character creation&period; You then set out to become an official Technomancer through an initiation mission&period; In comes one of the only interesting plot points&comma; and one that gets buried throughout the majority of the game&period; I won&&num;8217&semi;t spoil the specifics&comma; but it helps flesh out a world governed by oppression and tyranny&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109573" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109573" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109573" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03131227&sol;The&lowbar;Technomancer-04&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The Technomancer" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109573" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>The Technomancer<&sol;em>&comma; Focus Home Interactive&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>A B-movie version of <em>Mass Effect <&sol;em>is what I would call <em>The Technomancer<&sol;em>&period; When I talk about it acknowledging its influences&comma; it isn&&num;8217&semi;t a shock that Spiders borrows many concepts from the popular science fiction franchise&period; It even closely compares to their previous game&comma; <em>Bound by Flame<&sol;em>&comma; in terms of its mechanics&period; But plot-wise&comma; this is a much more personal story and one that moves at a fairly brisk pace&period; Where <em>Mass Effect <&sol;em>wants to be a space opera&comma; <em>The Technomancer <&sol;em>wants to be a space thriller&period; Complete with intrigue and conspiracies&comma; very little of the game deals with larger arcs than the current mission at hand&period; This is an interesting way to take a game set on Mars&comma; but Spiders is missing a lot of what would make that work&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For starters&comma; Zachariah is uninteresting&period; He&&num;8217&semi;s a blank slate that players can make decisions for&comma; but he lacks any history or defining traits other than that he is a Technomancer&period; Even with <em>Mass Effect<&sol;em>&comma; you at least chose your background&period; The voice acting alone feels detached from everything going on around the character&comma; making for an awkward exchange between most characters&period; This goes for some companions as well&period; Characters who have interesting histories like Phobos or Niesha&comma; lack interested voice actors&period; This created a dichotomy of me wanting to get invested in characters and the game&&num;8217&semi;s lore&comma; but finding every way it was presented to be deprived of emotion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109575" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109575" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109575" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03131149&sol;The&lowbar;technomancer-11&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The Technomancer" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109575" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>The Technomancer&comma;<&sol;em> Focus Home Interactive&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Enough about the story&comma; though&period; For a fifteen hour game &lpar;longer if you do all the side quests&rpar;&comma; it has enough to at least keep things moving and pushing players into combat&period; On its surface&comma; <em>The Technomancer <&sol;em>seems like an interesting game to actually play&period; There are three different types of fighting styles &&num;8211&semi; Rogue&comma; Warrior and Guardian &&num;8211&semi; each handling fairly differently&period; As a Guardian&comma; you are more agile but cannot do much in terms of long-range combat&comma; plus you&&num;8217&semi;re defenseless with the exception of a dodge&period; Then there&&num;8217&semi;s the Rogue&comma; who has a gun that provides long-range damage&period; The warrior gets a shield to add defense&period; You can switch between these styles at any point&comma; but really&comma; I only ever found myself gravitating towards the Guardian class&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The main reason for this is that my play style tends to be more aggressive but with as much agility as possible&period; The interesting twist on <em>The Technomancer <&sol;em>is that as a Technomancer you get the ability to harness electricity&period; That twist is fairly squandered though as it just means your weapon can be electrified&comma; doing more damage&comma; and if you want you can shoot some electricity at enemies&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s the most basic modifier you can have&comma; and offers very little in terms of complexity&period; I would still fight like I normally would&comma; but occasionally I&&num;8217&semi;d hit someone from afar because I&&num;8217&semi;m low on health&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109574" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109574" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109574" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03131209&sol;The&lowbar;Technomancer-05&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The Technomancer" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109574" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>The Technomancer<&sol;em>&comma; Focus Home Interactive&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>There is something to be said about the game&&num;8217&semi;s combat&period; It feels like the game is always trying to keep you on your toes in combat scenarios&period; Those situations arise far too frequently and it&&num;8217&semi;s disappointing because the game never really forces you to play differently from one scenario to the next&period; I would just hit the enemy a couple times&comma; then either dodge or disrupt him so I can get some more hits in&comma; then occasionally I&&num;8217&semi;d have to shoot some lightning&period; There is an element of strategy in who you decide to fight first as there tends to always be someone with a gun shooting at you from afar&comma; or a brute-like character that can&&num;8217&semi;t be disrupted as easily and has tons of health&period; I would often just take out the gunmen first&comma; then the smaller characters&comma; then focus on the brute&period; You really don&&num;8217&semi;t run into much diversity in terms of enemies or how they behave&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For a game set on a planet that is seemingly rampant with mutants&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;d expect a bit more diversity in terms of the enemy types&period; What was surprising was how often combat scenarios would begin&comma; but how few enemy types there were&period; <em>The Technomancer <&sol;em>is all about lore and the world of Mars&comma; but it doesn&&num;8217&semi;t seem to have much to explore&period; Even in the handful of areas that the game takes you to &lpar;it really is a small amount&comma; especially when you look at all the blank space on the map&rpar;&comma; there is a problem with environments feeling far too similar &lpar;a problem with Mars being the setting&rpar; and encounters just happening at predictable moments in each area&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109572" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109572" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109572" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03131245&sol;The&lowbar;Technomancer-02&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The Technomancer" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109572" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>The Technomancer<&sol;em>&comma; Focus Home Interactive&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>At the same time&comma; <em>The Technomancer <&sol;em>is kind of endearing&period; Its flaws are prevalent and abundant but that didn&&num;8217&semi;t stop me from wanting to like it&period; It just felt like every time I got closer to liking the game&comma; it pushed away&period; Even in its crafting&comma; which is one of its hooks&comma; the game manages to turn it simply into a matter of raising a number higher with seemingly little impact on the outcome of combat&period; If I ran into an encounter that had me using a few Technomancer abilities&comma; the game would sometimes drop in framerate considerably&comma; or even just when the game first loads up&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>These problems compound to make a frustrating experience that feels so close to being decent&comma; but just can&&num;8217&semi;t seem to ever hit the mark&period; Its use of a more personal story is interesting&comma; but is nullified by a lack of character building to have smaller moments mean something&period; Hindered by disconnected voice acting and terribly boring gameplay&comma; there is little enjoyment to be found in <em>The Technomancer<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>A PS4 review code for The Technomancer was provided by Focus Home Interactive for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;