Aliens have attacked Earth, killing millions in mere seconds. In a desperate attempt to retaliate, world leaders defended themselves with nuclear weapons. Now the aliens populate the planet, the world is a wasteland and the few remaining human survivors are relegated to dwelling in sewers, subways and basements to plot their revenge. An action-packed third-person shooter, MorphX drops players into the middle of the fallout in Moscow, Russia. As part of the new resistance, players awaken in an alien laboratory with the option to enhance their stamina and health with Alien DNA, but at the cost of gradually turning into a monster. In an effort to fight the aliens and find an antidote to the mutation, players can choose to either use the Alien DNA to their advantage, or reject it and focus solely on collecting a variety of weapons to take down their enemies.
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The game begins as a rather clunky third-person shooter, but it soon introduces hack and slash mechanics that come to dominate the experience. The melee action has a quick but loose feel to it that vaguely reminded me of Raven's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Restrain yourself slightly and you'll be able to siphon some health and energy from defeated enemies, or you can just hack away and reduce them to gibs. There's an ability that allows you to get sizable amounts of health back each time you strike a foe, with the added bonus of slow-motion to show off the resulting carnage. A cute touch is the dedicated kick button, which allows you to stagger some enemies and sends the game's headcrab knock-offs flying through the air. Despite their generic designs, the aliens are quite fun to fight against. Spotting the outline of a cloaked assassin-type enemy sneaking up on you before slashing him or delivering a finisher against a chain gun-wielding heavy can be very satisfying.
Tying this all together is the character progression, which is handled through a series of tile-connecting puzzles that you continually acquire new pieces for. These can be rearranged at any time, allowing you to adapt to circumstances and optimize the tile placement on upgrades you want to max out permanently. This is a legitimately clever system and I would love to see it implemented in games with decent budgets.
I wouldn't say MorphX is hidden gem by any means, but given its reputation I was pleasantly surprised by it. Perhaps the best summation of the game I've found is a Google Translated sentence in a review from the Russian publication Igromania: "This is trash in a good sense of the word: violent, dynamic, and in some places even funny."