Defiance puts you in the pilot seat of an experimental LAV-6 SABER, a one-man hovercraft armed with a variety of energy weapons, rockets, and smart-bombs. When a series of tests at a military manufacturing plant on the planet Calchon go horribly wrong, you find yourself under attack by hundreds of malformed, biomechanical monsters. You'll have to fight your way to freedom as you discover what exactly happened to bring these creatures to Calchon's doorstep. The actual gameplay of Defiance is a hybrid between a first-person shooter and a vehicle simulator. Unique to the game at the time was the ability to "hop" around levels with limited thruster power. You'll have to use your thrusters to solve level puzzles (finding ledges and hopping chasms) and outmaneuver enemies, many of which are armed with their own ballistic and energy weapons. Defiance presents its story almost entirely in-game, through the use of audio logs, voice overs, and commands from your superior officers. While the story serves mostly as a backdrop for the action, it does so in a way that is not intrusive or overbearing.