In 2011 Insomniac Games released a trailer for their latest game Overstrike. The trailer showcased a game with a humorous tone and a possibly interesting four-player co-op game. In 2012 Gameinformer magazine broke the story that the game was being “reworked and rebranded as Fuse.

In Fuse players take on the role of one of four members of a mercenary team called Overstrike. The story goes that a rogue private military company called Raven is attempting to harvest a new energy source called fuse to be used to manufacture weapons. The Overstrike team is contracted to retrieve the energy source and stop Raven.

The plot is a bit ludicrous. For instance how is a private military company (PMC) able to afford an army of thousands of troops equipped with advanced weaponry, an underwater sea base and a private island? I wouldn’t care so much if the story would just stop trying to be serious, and when the game does force in humor it just comes off as flat. Fuse essentially wants to have its cake and eat it — trying to create a realistic and gritty experience, while at the same time throwing in comedy to lighten the mood. It fails at both.

The gameplay isn’t any more interesting. The standard cover-to-cover based shooting gallery appears once more in all its bland glory. You move with your team from one room to the next, clearing the area of enemies and rinse-and-repeat until you’ve fallen asleep from the repetitiveness.

The co-op adds nothing to the overall gameplay experience and simply serves to allow friends to join in on the boredom.

If you opt to play solo you’ll find that, though your computer controlled squadmates are surprisingly reliable, there is absolutely no way to command them in combat.

Fuse had the potential to be a unique game, but has been streamlined into one of the many interchangeable, average, lackluster third-person shooters.

2 out 5 stars