Spelling mistakes in the blurb here didn't bode well (apparently it's raining 'technaology' on Earth, whatever that is), and growing a long white beard while it littered my console with data installs and patches did not lessened my foreboding.

The hook with Defiance is its interaction with Syfy TV series, with each format affecting the other.

Somehow.

It's a bold approach but relies on your ongoing dedication to the telly and the game, probably eliminating all other aspects of your life. But then, we gamers are all used to that, no? And it's hardly sunny out is it?

As you'd expect from a Syfy-related drama, the script is awful, with unnecessary profanity splashed about and yawnsome stereotypes populating a badly drawn landscape.

 

Nevertheless, the fact your ongoing, apparently neverending story involves the cooperation with and competition against thousands of other players (for alien technaology, no less) elevates this third-person shooter above a lot of its smarter, more attractive contemporaries.

Very rough around the edges, but its realised ambition is very impressive indeed.