Falling Skies: The Game (PlayStation 3) Review

Falling Skies might at first appear as a worthwhile title to get. It has the tested and well-working gameplay of the XCOM series - to be honest it is a carbon copy of it - and the story of a long running post apocalyptic sci-fi series. This mix should make something good. However, as this is a licensed game, the makers of it were likely more eager to get it out as early as possible after spending as little money as they could on it, which in the end makes a game that is flawed in several ways.

The first thing met is a good looking start-up screen. Take a good look at it and adore it because from that point onwards everything will look ugly and as if taken from a bad PlayStation 2 title. Right after pressing the Start button, the player is met by the most eye-burning cut-scenes since the early 2000s. It is obvious that the team tried to make the characters look realistic, yet simply did not have the budget or time (or both) to pull it off, leaving an awkward mess.

The game then starts up and shows off its gameplay, copied right from the XCOM line. A good choice indeed if wanting to make a good Western turn-based strategy game, it would probably be safe to assume. At this point, the gameplay looks good - no issues on that department. However, some missions in and the cheap and rushed design becomes obvious.

To begin with, there are very few classes and customisation options, which is a flaw the franchise the game is built upon also shares, so it is possible to cut Falling Skies some slack in that department. What is completely unacceptable, however, is how the difficulty of the game decreases over time. This is true no matter what difficulty level it is played at. The issue is that the enemies level up at too slow a rate compared to the protagonist's party. This creates gameplay that feels more of a chore after a while than a fun and risk-filled game like releases in this genre should feel like. After the first four or five missions there are barely any moments that prove to be a hindrance to progress. This is a flaw that shows just how rushed the game truly was since it seems that no time was even spent on checking this important balance aspect.

Another large fault lies with the fact that it is simply is a copy, and a bad one at that. There is really no excuse to play Falling Skies: The Game instead of the various entries into the XCOM series. If Falling Skies at least added some elements of its own this would not have been such an eyesore, but that isn't the case, so it just adds to its cheap feel.

Speaking of cheap, the developer really was cutting corners with the cut-scenes and story, not only when it comes to quality, but also quantity. Considering that Falling Skies: The Game is based on a long running sci-fi show, there no excuse to not have story, yet it only has story segments very sparely tossed out during the action, having the player work through over a dozen of missions before coming to the next segment. This makes the story feel spread out too thinly, and it is all too easy to forget where it stopped last time, which makes it seem painfully irrelevant.

Not everything is doom and gloom, though, as there are some saving graces, the first of which is the gameplay. Sure, it is a copycat of the XCOM gameplay, but at its core it is at least functional.

The second is the amount of content offered. Falling Skies: The Game will last for many, many hours, and it does offer a sort of replay value due to the setup being randomised - no single play-through is the same. The enemies are randomised in a way that makes the same stage feel different each time it is played. This, combined with the fact that the order stages are played differs, makes for a game that can be replayed whilst still feeling fresh.

Sadly, however, Falling Skies does not do that replayability justice by ending up being a bad XCOM clone. The cut-scenes look horrible, the gameplay is shallow, and the AI simply stupid. It all ends up being yet another underdeveloped licensed game that could have turned into something greater than it is just by being treated like a real title and not a mere money grab. Most issues could easily have been fixed with some time and money that sadly was not given to the development team.