Inversion Will Turn the World Upside Down in 2010

Games have been messing around with the fixed rules of the universe ever since the first platform title was brought to life. And the favorite constant-turned-variable is without a doubt the law of gravity. On purpose, games have never truly defied the “all things that go up must eventually come down” saying, but bugs have taken immense liberties with this cruel truth. The more and more elaborate physics engines have become, trying to depict more accurately the way gravity affects a game's universe, the more has Newton's crowning achievement suffered.

HalfLife 2 and the Source engine it uses are one of the most popular examples when it comes to tinkering with gravity. Portal and Garry's Mod are just two of the game's children that have decided to make a mockery of modern physics and the one thing they proved was that science, or better said killing science, can be very, very fun. But many others have followed in their footsteps and the latest title to embark the “gravity-defying” train is Namco Bandai's Inversion, which will be brought to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 next year.

The game is pegged as a third-person co-op shooter and it will tell the story of an oppressed human race that tries to fight its alien invaders. Inversion's gameplay will mainly rely on the "grappler" gun, a device that can manipulate large objects and enable players to use them as shields or fast-moving impact projectiles. Along with the possibility to tear off the cover from behind which enemies lay fire, the game looks like it will be a very long “gravity gun” level from HalfLife 2. But of course, with a co-op partner.

These weapons were brought by man's enemy himself, the Lutadore, and apparently, like the good little scavengers that we are, we managed to pilfer one. However, handling the weapons seems to have some very unpleasant consequences as well, and some portions of the city in which the game will take place have been turned into zero-gravity death traps. Inversion is developed by Saber Interactive, a New York company that has experience with games that fiddle with the very laws of the universe – they also made TimeShift, another title that tangled with such laws, a sci-fi shooter that enabled players to alter the natural flow of time.