Toys are something that are synonymous with everyone’s childhood. Each one of us collecting plastic figures of our favourite characters to duke it out in battles developed from our own imagination. Video games can also be considered a part of our childhood and allow us to get sucked into new worlds and characters whilst having a ton of fun in the process. But what do you get when you take both of these aspects of our childhood and merge them together? You get something like Hypercharge: Unboxed, a first, and third, person shooter game where you play as your very own action figure. The game aims to provide players with a fun experience that blends all the good aspects of a shooter game together into one neat package, but unfortunately it only half suceeds.
Let’s Play
Like most shooters, Hypercharge’s main gameplay mechanic is shooting. You will have a variety of toys to play with with a majority of them feeling powerful in your hands. Guns feel like they have some weight behind them, but not to the point where they feel difficult to use. Couple that with some great sound design and the shooting overall feels fantastic. The selection of guns is also varied, however, throughout my time with the game I only found myself sticking to one gun: the starting rifle. It’s the most versatile of the arsenal and is effective against the campaigns AI enemies and other players in the multiplayer. The other weapons never feel useful in the scenarios you are put in. Shotguns only work if you are incredibly close, explosives such as the grenade don’t feel deadly enough, and the energy weapons are useless. The rifle, on the other hand, is great at everything that there’s not really any need to go out and explore the map for more powerful weapons.
Speaking of exploring, Hypercharge also includes parkour mechanics. The maps and levels take place in areas that we see in our daily lives, however, considering you’re a tiny toy, the maps are huge instead. This is where the parkour mechanic comes into play. Scattered all over the map are a variety of things to find and collect. These can range from new weapon attachments to add to your gun, medals you can use to create your defences in the campaign mode, or secret collectibles that will snag you some new gear. You’ll have to use your skills to time the jumps right to get to your destination or else you’ll fall down and have to start over again. The parkour at first can be quite stiff, as well as the game’s basic movement speed, but that quickly subsides after a couple of hours and can be very rewarding getting to those hard to reach areas.
Defend the Hypercore!
Much like those that have come before, Hypercharge features a full campaign except not in the way you typically expect. Hypercharge’s main campaign centres around defending power stations called Hypercores. Players must defend these Hypercores from multiple waves of enemies varying in size and power. Defences can be placed next to the Hypercores to prevent the enemies from getting to close to them, but will need credits to be crafted which can be found around the levels or from defeated enemies. The gameplay loop is clear enough, find credits, build defences, fight enemies until the wave ends and repeat about 4 or 5 times to complete the level. As far as defence gameplay goes it is decent, but after doing the same thing for the fifth time it’s charm quickly starts to dissipate. Even with the variety of settings and how unique they feel it doesn’t stop the core gameplay from feeling insanely repetitive.
The levels themselves though are a different story; they are incredibly large with a lot of detail put into every aspect of their design. Each level takes place in an area that we are easily familiar with: a garage, a kitchen, the aisle of a shopping centre. However, considering you are playing as a little tiny toy you are going to be seeing these settings from a brand new perspective and are able to explore every inch. The developers encourage this exploration by adding a ton of hidden things around the levels for you to find and collect. These include a specific amount of medals, stickers to place on objects, or timed parkour sections that test your ability with the mechanics. In addition that, once a level is complete you are granted a medal based on your performance and objectives completed. For example, making sure all Hypercores are intact by the end of the level will boost your final score and earn you the highest medal available.
By earning these medals, completing objectives and finding hidden secrets in the levels you get gifted unlocks for you to customize your action figure. Hypercharge has well over 100 customizable pieces for you to unlock. These range from different heads, weapon skins, character types, buildables to defend the Hypercores, and even the box your action figure comes in. The unlocks are easily the best part of the game. Providing an incentive for players to keep players for hours upon hours on end and not having to pay a single penny towards them – truly revolutionary stuff.
Toy Soldiers
Hypercharge’s multiplayer takes all the fast paced action from the campaign and turns it all the way up to eleven. There are 5 multiplayer in modes in total which offer different levels of fun. The best ones of the bunch are Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. These modes combine the satisfying shooting and parkour mechanics into a 1 on 1 battle with other players, makes each encounter feel nail-biting, exhilarating and tense all at the same time. The same cannot be said for the multiplayer’s other modes: King of the Hill, Capture the Battery and Infection.
Both King of the Hill and Capture the Battery have moments where it does start to get fun, however, the modes quickly turn into just another deathmatch mode. Players will start to target each other and completely forget that there is an objective to actually win the game. However, this problem isn’t just exclusive to Hypercharge, it’s been an issue with these game modes for decades and is to be expected when jumping into a game.
Infection is without a doubt the worst mode. Whilst the core gameplay is relatively similar to other infection game types you can find in games like Halo, the mode simply doesn’t work here. Hypercharge’s massive map size doesn’t allow the mode to feel as it should be claustrophobic and tense as it should be. In addition to that, the game mode only has one round. So if you start the game as an infected you’ll have to finish the game, and queue up for another – if the game lets you that is. Finding these multiplayer games, especially for lower populated game types, are nearly impossible as the game will instead decide to offer you a server for a completely different game mode. Whilst handy for player to find multiplayer games, it’s annoying having to constantly decline the notification until you finally get what you actually selected.
Back in the Toybox
Hypercharge: Unboxed is a great game with a lot of replay value. A campaign that provides a lot of challenge and rewards, multiplayer that is fun and engaging, and a plethora of unlock is well worth the price of the game. However, it’s not flawless and there are a lot things that hold it back from being a great game. The multiplayer modes – especially infection – can be hit or miss, the guns feel redundant, and the repetitive design of the campaign does hinder the experience in some way, but not to the point no fun can be found. Hypercharge is a solid experience that has everything you could want from a shooter game and if you’re in the mood to play toy soldiers for a couple of hours then this one is a must buy.
The Review
Good
