Unsurprisingly, the new augmented reality game Men in Black: Global Invasion left me feeling just as disappointed as the new movie.
Global Invasion feels like a cheap cashgrab movie tie-in, and despite being in early access for months, the release still feels just as bare-bones as the beta.
For example, the game still doesn’t offer character customization, and you can find free Unity assets that look better than the game’s player model/animations.
My biggest criticism for Global Invasion though, is that the game ultimately fails at making you feel like a Men in Black agent.
Global Invasion is so caught up in trying to copy the Pokemon GO formula, that it forgets what the Men in Black franchise is about, and what the experience should be.
At no point in time when I was playing Global Invasion did I feel like Agent K or J, blasting through aliens to save the world.
Global Invasion should have followed the gameplay style of The Walking Dead: our World, with action-based combat, instead of having players capturing pokemon aliens.
Along with this, the game also suffers from a terrible monetization model, uninspired user-interface and convoluted gameplay systems.
Global Invasion has a VIP subscription service that costs $20 a month, alongside a premium currency system which just screams greedy.
Whilst I can usually look past a generic UI, it’s the cherry on top of everything else. The in-game map lacks any personality and the menus come off as bland.
Finally, whilst the story missions in the game are a cool idea, the turn-based battle gameplay just feels out of place compared to the rest of the game.
I will praise Global Invasion for something though, they allow the player to speed up animations in battle which is a nice quality of life feature I wish the other AR games offered.
Global Invasion tries to offer the catch ’em all gameplay of Pokemon GO, and an engaging RPG experience but ultimately fails at delivering both.
I wouldn’t recommend Men in Black: Global Invasion to anyone, especially when there are better augmented reality games on the market.
If you’re a hardcore fan of the Men in Black franchise, I feel like the game would just be an underwhelming experience, and a disservice to the movies.
There are some cool concepts in Global Invasion, and it’s unfortunate to see they weren’t executed better.
It’s clear Sony just wanted to push out another cheap augmented reality game tie-in, and it’ll probably suffer the same fate as Ghostbusters World.