Things have changed a lot in the last twenty years of video game history. Heck, they’ve changed a lot in the past ten. You don’t have to look any further than a comparison between Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy to see how. The same can be said of games like Halo 3 or Team Fortress 2 compared to their granddads, Wolfenstein and Doom, or their fathers, Unreal Championship, Quake, and Tribes (and, obviously, Team Fortress 1 can fit here). No matter how much we love games like Halo 3 and Team Fortress 2, though, there’s just something special about that old school feeling. CellFactor: Psychokinetic Wars is a new First Person Shooter addition to the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace that does a nice job of capturing that old school feeling with some new school twists.

Gameplay:

The first, most important thing to know about CellFactor is that it’s basically 100% multiplayer. With the exception of tutorials and character challenges, there’s very little to do alone and everything to do online. The tutorials are brief introductions to each of the three character’s unique abilities, and the challenges are really just advanced tutorials as well. This isn’t necessarily bad, just important to know before you make a purchase. So, if you’re looking for a solid multiplayer experience, keep reading.

There is very little (if any) backstory to CellFactor, but the short of it is that there is some sort of conflict between factions that each believe in varying levels of technology and psychic power. This leads to players being able to choose from one of three character types: the cyborgish Bishops (notable for being the only female characters), the human, commando-like BlackOps, and the Terminator-like Guardians. Each class has a unique strength to it, and, unsurprisingly, mastering that strength is the key to success. Gameplay is divided into traditional FPS style running and gunning, and the strategic use of your psychic abilities to get an edge over your opposition. In this sense, managing your character’s energy can be the key to an extended lifespan or becoming a tally on someone’s kill counter.

The most balanced character in the game is the BlackOps, who uses both conventional weaponry and psychic power at the same time as a poster boy for CellFactor’s emphasis. With the ability to teleport, project a defensive forcefield, and throw debris all while wielding the game’s arsenal (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, rocket launcher, or sniper rifle), the BlackOps can potentially handle any situation he’s faced with. He can even lay mines to catch unsuspecting opponents off guard or protect key areas in team games.

The Guardian is CellFactor’s “heavy firepower” character, and is the only character who can dual-wield any combination of weapons at the same time (including two rocket launchers for extreme pain). They have no psychic abilities, but can jump extremely high and use a fast shoulder tackle to kill or heavily damage opponents. Oddly, they don’t have a unique weapon like the BlackOps’ mine, though with the heavy firepower they already pack it may have been unnecessary.

The Bishops have the widest range of psychic abilities, making them seem “mage-like” in contrast to their more heavily armed counterparts. They can throw debris, create a forcefield, fly, and collect a large ball of debris to use for a devastating one-hit-kill attack. Instead of using the firearms scattered throughout the maps, Bishops seem to convert the weapon into a psychic attack they project from their hand that mirrors the attack of the weapon they converted. A shotgun is a wide psychic blast, for example, while the assault rifle is a concentrated stream of psychic energy. The Bishops’ have a blinding flash attack in place of the BlackOps’ mine.

Players can customize each character’s appearance, and even add two enhancements to each character. These enhancements can range from faster weapon reloads to decreased psychic energy drains to radar invisibility. While two enhancements doesn’t sound like much, it actually opens up the possibility for some interesting builds to compliment your style online.

Graphics:

Visually speaking, CellFactor isn’t that bad. The graphics are uniquely placed in between a 2000 circa PC game, and an early Xbox 360 game. The maps will remind you of Unreal or Tribes, but the character models are very nice and very well detailed and polished. This works out fairly well, though, as there is no slowdown and the game runs smoothly online with no visual hiccups. It’s very basic, though, as there are really no special effects to speak of and most of the explosions or animations are very basic from that same 1999-2001 PC game area.

Sound:

CellFactor is not a game you buy for eye candy, nor is it a game you buy for a rich audio track. There is some fundamental “action music” going in the background, and sound effects are standard fare for explosions and gunfire. The nicest touch to the audio is the Unreal style announcer who proclaims your “double kill,” “triple kill,” “headshot,” and “Arena Master” accomplishments during the game. I’ve always had a soft spot for the announcer.

Longevity:

There are four gametypes to choose from – Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Assault. Assault functions almost identical to its Halo 3 counterpart, where each team will alternate rounds taking a hacker (bomb) into the enemies’ base and hacking (planting) their opponents’ data. Games can be as large as eight on eight, or a full sixteen man Deathmatch, but I seemed to run into a fairly painful wall of lag every time I ventured higher than 8-12 players.

It’s hard to say how much time you’ll get out of CellFactor. Nine out of twelve of the achievements are obtained through the tutorials and challenges, which is bizarre for a multiplayer game. However, this ensures fairness, as the challenges unlock the character enhancements. This guarantees that you can go into online play on a level playing field if you invested an hour or so into the challenges. That is another bizarre aspect of the game – the achievements are very easy to earn, and many of them are rewarded for performing objectives that must be performed in the challenges to advance.

Online play was somewhat sparse for ranked matches, with more matches available in the unranked player matches. Unless you are dead set on a particular kind of ranked match, it isn’t difficult to find a game. However, the connection you get is host-dependent and can obviously be very strong or insanely laggy in larger matches. The maps are interesting and unique (none of them feel like rehashes of one another), but they seem to lend themselves to certain characters and give those characters advantages. The Bishops, for example, have a huge edge on bigger, more open maps because they can easily slam an opponent with their one-hit-kill attack for a pitifully easy score that leaves you searching for a sniper rifle or cover. Tight, enclosed maps lend favor to the Guardians, who can decimate anything in a hallway before their victim realizes what hit them – even if the Guardian is only using pistols. It makes sense, but it can force players to change to a class they aren’t comfortable with or eat a quick loss.

Overall:

CellFactor: Psychokinetic Wars is a uniquely fun multiplayer shooter than will satisfy old school fans and give them, and competition hungry new schoolers, a solid alternative to the bigger games on the market that require a larger online time investment or statistical paranoia. While a single player mode with bots would have been a nice addition (to allow players to get to know the maps better, or relax with friends who enjoy bot matches more than player matches), it’s easy to jump into a game, kill some time, and have some fun. For an asking price of 800 Microsoft points (or $10.00 / £6.80), CellFactor is a welcome addition to Xbox Live.