Review: "Defiance" (2013) "MMO On Consoles Mean Syfy Channel Show?"

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A few weeks ago I played the beta for Defiance and said that if Trion tightened up a few aspects and polished a few, it could be a very good game. Well now that the game is here, a polish was added to the graphics and audio, but they forgot to tighten the gameplay.

By: Adam Zimmerman

Graphically, while still not on the level of most AAA games, it is improved over the beta. Now instead of looking like a really good PS2 game, it at least looks like a slightly below average PS3 game. One somewhat odd thing is how accurate the faces of characters from the TV show, but how stiff they are as well. Their faces hardly move when talking. I wish the game looked as good as it does in the commercials, but sadly it doesn’t. Nothing really stands out for being really good or really bad.

On the audio side of things, it’s a mixed bag. The sound effects are decent. You don’t feel things in your chest, but it’s not like the sound effects are tinny or anything like that. Dialogue is where things go wrong, very, very, wrong. One of the first NPC’s that you team up with is an alien named Cass. I’m not sure but I suspect the writer’s were having a contest to see who could give her the worst dialogue. She’s a badly written stereotypical bounty hunter. It’s bad, really bad. Also, apparently aliens can’t swear in English. Human soldiers have no problems dropping F bombs all over the place, but she says “shtako.” Everything else she says in perfect English, but swearing is in her native tongue.

When you first start the game, you have to make your character. There is a good variety of option to choose from, but unfortunately except for your looks, your initial choices don’t matter all that much. No matter which class you pick, the only thing that is different is the weapons you start with. All the characters have the same powers and upgrades, and they can use every type of weapon. So if you start as a survivor (sniper) and decide you don’t like bolt-action sniper rifles, don’t worry. You can change everything soon enough.

Just like everything else with this game, gameplay is mixed bag as well. One major issue I had was how long it takes to get through the introductory area. It literally takes roughly 12 hours of gameplay to move on to other areas. It wouldn’t be so bad if the first area was incredibly fun, but it isn’t. Most shooter campaigns don’t last more than 10 hours these days. 3 to 4 hours would have been perfect. As it is, it drags on way too long. Mission objectives offer a good variety, but sometimes the difficulty expectantly ramps up and you end up dying way more than you should. Luckily the penalty for dying isn’t too much.

You lose some money and that’s about it. There’s no respawn timer or anything. Once you do finally get out of the initial area, there are signs of improvements. I played a few missions that were more fun and had better dialogue than anything up to that point. It would have been a much better game if they started with missions like these instead of the way the game actually started. Another issue I experienced a few times was problems with quest objectives not working properly. I could see dozens of other people completing the objective with no issues, but I wouldn’t be able to activate it. I had to restart the game to get them to work properly.


The action still is lacking for me unfortunately. Things may get more difficult, but I never felt my heart beat rising with the action. There is still a lack of intensity for me which takes away from the experience a bit.

Where the game really does shine is what are called Arkfall events. These are random events with big boss like creatures that draw in players from all around the surrounding area. They turn into large co-op battles that everyone looks forward to.

I haven’t really played the PvP part of the game yet so I won’t get into that.

While I played the PS3 version, I do feel obligated to tell you that the Xbox 360 version has been having a lot of problems so far. There are widespread reports of framerate problems, login issues (which I did experience on the first day with the PS3 version, but not since then), and server crashes. A patch that was released helped with some of these problems but they still occur when too many players and NPC’s are in the same area.


Our Honest View gives Defiance a 7 out of 10. The bad has been set for Bungie’s Destiny, which comes out later this year. It’s not an incredibly high bar, but a bar nonetheless. It still has potential, and there are both high and low points. Hopefully future patches with address some of the bugs, and once the TV show starts on April 16th some new, interesting story elements will be added.

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Replay Value: Moderate

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