It’s a cracking concept that takes cues from squad-based shooter with the added quirk of the gravcycle. Each unit of your chatty band of rebels has their own ability -concussive grenades, mortar strikes and time-slowing domes- which can be ordered to let rip in sprawling skirmishes against waves of red-eyed Rayonne robots. You can chain these abilities together too; if you hit a time-slowed group of enemies with a concussive grenade, they will stagger for longer, making your gunfire eminently more deadly.
There is something rather satisfying about a well-executed manoeuvre, yelling orders while looping your gravcycle under bridges and opening fire. This is helped by punchy gunfire, which shatters enemies into scrap and tears through the scenery. One early mission has you battling across wide open farmland, robotic armies clomping across fields, bullets turning barns into kindling. That Halo DNA can be clear to see in many of its airy autumnal environments.
Once you get past its initial thrill, however, Disintegration does start to fall apart. The AI of your teammates can be exceedingly frustrating, showing little regard for their own safety even when you have ordered them to hang back, getting caught in crossfire and blowing up on the regular. You can revive your teammates by recovering their ‘brain’ before a new body is airdropped in, but leave it too long and the mission fails altogether. A more charitable mind might suggest that this easy revival is the reason for their cavalier attitude towards death, but that wouldn’t make it any less irritating to constantly be cleaning up their mess.
It is a pretty integral flaw, unfortunately, that does get shown up more the further you progress. As does the game’s propensity to make its individual skirmishes go on that little bit too long, waves of seemingly never ending fodder to chew through until your attention starts to wane, rattling off bullets and waiting for your pals abilities to cooldown so you can use them again.
