Gravity holds the Earth in orbit, but it also keeps anyone who isn't an astronaut tethered to terra firma. Turns out all you need is a change of wardrobe: Slide on an anti-gravity harness, and suddenly you're the star of a cover-based shooter with a gravity-defying twist.

+ Cover-based co-op combat feels natural, even with gravity-tweaking gear on your back, + Exciting and dynamic multiplayer modes; reasonably attractive destructible environments

? Does Eric Clapton get a check every time Davis shouts "Leila"

I remember a few months back wanting to play Inversion when its first release date back in February. Once it was pushed back I didn't think any more about it until last week when I asked Namco if we could receive a copy to review.

' There's something strangely familiar about Inversion and its topsy-turvy, postapocalyptic world. It's not so much that it takes inspiration from the greats of the shooter world as that it rips them off entirely.

Funny in a "so bad it's good" kind of way, Flinging cars in people's faces

Boring and unbalanced multiplayer modes; Gaping plot holes; Weak weapons; Wooden voice acting

When it comes to cover-based third-person shooters, comparisons to Gears of War are going to happen. The game practically invented the sub-genre, after all. The problem with making comparisons is that they don't indicate a game's actual quality.

Flinging an enemy high into the air and watching the varying gravity directions pull him back and forth

Pretty much every single line of dialogue; Or the boss fights.

What goes up, must come down. Inversion comes down hard. Full review inside.

+ Online has a cool concept; + Gravity sections are fun

Shooting mechanics are stiff; Long checkpoint loading; Gravity powers feel underused; Poor presentation and narrative

" Inversion " is not a great game, mostly because the gunplay is pretty dire, and the bosses are over-used and over-difficult. The game gets more and more frustrating as you progress, and I could barely stand it by the end.

Red Faction , Gears of War , Dead Space , Army of Two , Half-Life 2 , Ratchet and Clank , Rage , Fracture . Inversion would deign to cull elements from each of these games and house them under one roof- an awesome proposition.

Inversion was born into an unfortunate situation. As the youngest child of a long generation of cover-based shooters, most people didn't have high expectations for ‘yet another cover-based shooter' and, especially amongst the Xbox clan, Inversion will always be branded as yet another lookalike to...

It's never satisfying to condemn any game but it's hard not to with Inversion . There are glimmers of nice ideas within, but the water is too muddied to see them clearly. All that's left is a bunch of mechanics that we've all seen before, and better implemented elsewhere.

Inversion is an interesting game that has some strong parallels with Gears of War and the developers previous game, Time Shift . In Inversion, mankind has been invaded by a powerful group of humanoids called the Lutador with dark ulterior motives as they tear the planet apart with their gravity...