Hybrid (PS) (1997)
Developer: Motivetime and Elite Systems

Review by Faididi and Co.


Only a mixture of stupidity and boredom


Story: Average

The setting here is another generic post-apocalyptic future. Apparently, space aliens have come to Earth, intermingled with the human population for a while, and then caused everything to turn to shit. Now, four separate heroes run through danger-packed ruins to save what's left of the world. Caring about the story would've been easier had there been actual connections among the protagonists, instead of leaving them as standalone characters.


Gameplay: Sucks All Ass

Motivetime and Elite Systems' Hybrid is a first person shooter with 4 playable characters, each enjoying different perks. The cyborg dude has a pistol that comes with a permanent targeting power-up. The cute sorceress has a stamina-draining fireball spell in lieu of a hand-to-hand weapon. The space alien guy begins with one of the bigger guns. The plain human trooper supposedly finds the advanced weapons earlier than the others can.

The game's problem, however, is that it's horribly, horribly outdated and inferior in every way. Completely blind to the progress made in the world of FPSs, Hybrid lacks the smart and creative level design of 3D Realms' Duke Nukem 3D, the polygonal beauty of Id's Quake, and even the meaningful character differences of Raven's Hexen.

Hybrid isn't just uninspired and dull, but it's devoid of any good sense. The single-Player-only action is bad enough already, but all the heroes ultimately find the same guns and go through the same levels, begging one to ask what's the actual point of having so many playable heroes. The game throws in poisonous items as though to compensate for the weak enemy design, which is limited to the same three types of hostile drones over and over again. Furthermore, the short draw distance allows the bad guys to attack while they lie out of view, but at the same time it bizarrely prevents the heroes from hitting back at them.

Worst of all, the absolutely shitty level design shoves upon the Player painfully long, repetitive corridors and massive rooms that are as frustratingly boring to traverse as they are sloppily arranged. The horrid level layouts here are the sort that seem to be never playtested, and they're the same garbage that plagues other dimwitted FPSs that fail to recognize what really sets apart the best of the genre.


Controls: Sucks All Ass

Equally stupid are the stiff controls and the incomplete customization options. The characters can't turn while they're jumping, and the vertical auto-looking at enemies is annoying. Then, if the heroes get wasted, the game automatically removes all their equipment and restarts the level, without offering to load from a save file first.


Graphics: Sucks All Ass

The visuals can't even match those of Doom, let alone the true three-dimensional graphics of Quake. The low-resolution textures make everything look muddy, and the lousy framerate takes sharp plunges whenever small clusters of objects pass into view. The sight-robbing draw distance allows enemies to attack before they can be seen further down the long corridors, and that is fucking retarded. Just to further piss you off, the game is bogged down with excessive loading times, requiring you to wait even when you're merely navigating the menus.


Audio: Average

The sparse sound effects are paired with low-grade vocal effects. The music is forgettable to the point where turning it on or off doesn't matter.


Overall: Sucks All Ass

Why bother with this laughable excuse of a game? There may be no FPS worse than Hybrid. Its unbelievably awful level design guarantees to enrage you with its nonsensical layouts and utterly boring corridors. Its amateurish visuals look shitty, yet they dare to cloak enemies in the distance while forcing you to put up with ridiculous loading times. Save yourself the pain by avoiding Hybrid and its unending slew of infuriating flaws.


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