Fray review (PC)

Don't expect consistently helpful camera angles..

Units frequently walk through one another, face the wrong direction while they're moving, spray bullets without lifting their guns properly, and even randomly spin their entire upper torsos around. The clunky interface isn't always responsive either, and some commands don't register properly on the first try. For example, it's frustrating when you're trying to attack foes, but clicking on them triggers a command to walk up to them instead, no matter how many times you retry it. Wrestling with and undoing sporadic wonky orders detracts from the flow of combat and makes it easy to trip up, wasting precious time in the process as the turn counter clicks down.

Taming the twitchy camera to get a good view of the action is equally problematic, and it's disorienting when it snaps back to a less-than-ideal default position after each turn. The mini-map is poorly implemented, and it sometimes jumps to random points far away, making it a real challenge to work your way back to the action in time. Then there are the moments when the game stutters and hangs for a few seconds when transitioning between turns or right before victory is triggered. All of these issues both major and minor add up to make Fray feel much more like a work-in-progress beta than a retail-ready release.

Issuing orders can get sticky.

Since multiplayer is the main show, the only show really, Fray's lack of proper matchmaking is bizarre. Without any means of setting restrictions on your opponents' levels, matches tend to be ridiculously easy or absurdly hard, and that's if you can find someone willing to play you. There's rarely more than one open game going at a time and only a dozen or so folks lurking in the menu chatroom, limiting the pool of available opponents to whomever you can coerce into battle. Once the action begins, higher-level players grind your four-man crew to a gritty pulp, making it frustrating to win matches, gain experience, and progress enough to unlock new kits for your posse. Or you wind up bowling over a weaker opponent with ease. The fact that there are so few people playing the game at any given time makes this even more aggravating.

But on the rare occasions when you do face off against an evenly matched foe, and the glitch gremlins at work behind the scenes decide to take a momentary lunch break, Fray has the potential to slip into a steady groove and become engrossing enough to make its shortcomings temporarily fade to the background like distant white noise. Matches can be a lot of fun, though it takes a near perfect storm of conditions to make them so. Numerous technical burps and hiccups are unwelcome distractions that stick to Fray like a stepped-on piece of chewed gum. They're a nuisance that adds unpleasant bulk to the game's more generic moments and make it feel unfinished.