Just in the very first seconds after I’ve started the game and set the graphics quality from “graverage” to “gravnificient” I knew that the “Graviators” by Polycanic Studios will be a lot of fun. The first impression counts, but appearances are often deceiving. We’ll better make doubly sure that this game is as great as I think and put it to the test!

The tutorial is well done, comprehensive – and funny!

위,아래, 위, 위, 아래!

I hope you don’t suffer from motion sickness or vestibular disorder, because in Graviators it’s permanently going up and down, down and up, left to right and right to left. Yes, like in Prey and other games following this principle, you can play with gravity and you’ll do that a lot.

Empowering the user to change the force of gravity is the beating heart of Graviators (who would have guessed!) and is working seamlessly and fluently. The game is like a virtual, futuristic battle arena, in which you can compete with the A.I. or other players – both online and in a local area network. Fighting in an arena is pretty cool, especially because of the “stadium announcer” who comments on your battles.

Below The Mark

I love the setting, I love the gravity switches, I love the humor. Still, the game is underperforming in at least three areas, that urgently need some improvement.

1. Sounds. Oh dear, while playing my first PvE battle, I wasn’t quite sure, if my headphones are broken or if I accidentally hit the mute button. The imbalance between these flashy graphics on the one side and this puny-miserly soundscape on the other side is very disturbing.
2. Performance. Yeah, I know. The game is in progress. Still, I hope we can expect matches without lags and frame drops in the future as my PC easily matches the minimum system requirements. And it should also be able to deal with the maximum… right?
3. Artifical Intelligence. Since the online servers are still empty, the alternative would be playing vs computer. The enemies, however, are so dumb, that it’s hard to speak of artificial intelligence. At least let them fake intelligence by moving faster through the levels. At the moment, the A.I. plays rather… bräsig. Look it up, there is no English word for that, so why not learning a German one? 🙂

Take this, virtual Fred!

The Verdict

“Graviators” is a promising third person arena-based brawler with a lot of charme and wit. Help the developer filling the servers and download the game here!

All pictures are in-game screenshots.