Fuse's gameplay has some good ideas, but they don't carry enough weight in what's otherwise a shooter campaign the like of which you've almost certainly seen before. And it's hard not to think back to the exciting first trailer from two years ago, since many of the shipping game's most outlandish aspects would have been more at home in that highly stylized, wisecracking version that never got made. Fighting in an undersea base and a space station? An exotic Asian assassin who turns out to be someone's ex-girlfriend? A sneering Russian who shoots himself up with Fuse and grows 10 stories tall? It feels like the off-the-wall good ideas Insomniac had for that sillier game have survived, but those ideas are a bit uncomfortably at odds with the serious look and tone of the game as it is now. Fuse plays pretty well, but with smoother execution and a more cohesive identity, it would have an easier time standing out in a genre that, as this generation of consoles comes to a close, is wearing out its welcome more and more.
