Gemini: Heroes Reborn

I have a love/hate relationship with NBC's Heroes. Like many people, I enjoyed the first season. It had a strong villain, intriguing premise and legendary showrunner Bryan Fuller keeping everything grounded. But then came the writer's strike, the cast changes and the plot holes you could drive a truck through. I begrudgingly watched every episode, determined to see it to the end no matter what.

Five years after pulling the plug, NBC decided to resurrect the show under a new name -- Heroes Reborn. This continuation saw a new cast team up with some of your favorites from the original run. At least, I assume what it's about. The truth is, I chose not to get on the ride this time around. I was fooled into hate-watching three completely unnecessary seasons of Heroes and have no intention of repeating my mistakes.

I may have vowed to steer clear of the recent television reboot, but that wasn't going to keep me from playing Gemini: Heroes Reborn. As somebody who spent far too many episodes waiting for cool stuff to happen, I was ready to play a game full of super-human characters doing what they do best -- blowing crap up.

You control Cassandra, a seemingly clueless teenager who is off exploring an old abandoned facility with her buddy Alex. But instead of finding cool treasures in the off-limits ruins, the pair stumbles across a group of soldiers who take Alex hostage. It doesn't take long for Cassandra to spring into action and attempt to free her friend. Little does she know that a kidnapping will be the least unusual thing to happen to her on this day.

It wouldn't be a Heroes experience without an everyday normal person suddenly getting superhuman powers. In Cassandra's case, she can use her gift to jump through time. But don't get too excited about going back to kill baby Hitler, because she is only able to shift between two different dates -- July 13, 2008 and June 16, 2014.

Beyond being intrinsically connected to the story, Cassandra discovers that these two time periods give her the freedom to explore areas that would normally be out of reach. It also allows a tiny teenage girl to take on a small army's worth of soldiers. She can jump between times at the press of a button and even preview what's on the other side of the magical portal. Best of all, she can take objects between years to help give her the upper-hand in every fight.

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If this were the television show, they would spend a whole season developing Cassandra's powers and showing her confidence build with every encounter. But there's no time for that in Gemini: Heroes Reborn; this is a video game, after all. She quickly goes from jumping through time to using telekinetic powers to stop bullets and throw objects. And did I mention that she's also able to slow down time and run real fast? Sometimes it feels like there's nothing she can't do.

As you would imagine, it's a lot of fun to play around with Cassandra's various powers. Even without firing guns, there's an inherent joy to stopping a missile inches away from your face and hurling it back at the enemy with your Force powers. This is all a blast for the first half hour, but quickly turns repetitive when you realize there isn't much more to the combat. Cassandra's powers would have been better suited to a more interesting game; something that wasn't pigeonholed into the Heroes universe.

A big part of the problem is that the facility isn't visually interesting. You'll see a lot of the same types of rooms and areas across the three hour adventure, only sometimes with different colors and details. In the future, the building is completely crumbling; overrun with vegetation. The two time periods do an excellent job of standing out, but fail to make the dull locations more interesting.

It doesn't help that Gemini: Heroes Reborn has one of the most predictable plot twists I've even seen. You don't have to be a fan of the TV show to see where this is going within the first few minutes. And like so many stories employing excessive amounts of time travel, I'm not sure the story makes a lot of sense when everything is said and done.

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Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Gemini: Heroes Reborn is that it only uses one of the characters from the show. Forget about teaming up with Hiro, Noah Bennet and The Haitian, because this game is filled with brand new faces. While I'm sure some will get a kick out using Cassandra's special abilities, I have a hunch longtime Heroes fans will be disappointed by the complete lack of fan service. Most mentions to the source material is brief and often inconsequential.

I applaud the developers for turning what could have been a mindless beat-em-up into a fast-paced platform puzzler. At its best, the game attempts to mimic the 3D challenges found in Mirror's Edge and Portal, only without the expert precision we saw in those releases. I enjoyed playing around with the superpowers and confusing the faceless guards, but even at a brief three hours, Gemini: Heroes Reborn runs out of steam quickly.