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dkirschner's Shattered Horizon (PC)

[November 13, 2010 05:38:35 AM]

Shattered Horizon was the other freebie on Steam last weekend. I almost played it some on another free weekend back in like June, but never got around to it, and I almost ran out of time last weekend, but was determined to give it a shot. I'm glad I got to mess around with it for a couple hours because it was very interesting, and reminded me most of the old Tribes games and/or Unreal Tournament's outdoor space levels, or of any low/no gravity mod I've ever played. It reminded me of these, but really takes the low/no gravity mechanic a lot further. You play the game in a space suit. Your space-suited character is armed with a gun you load out with at the beginning of the match, as well as some special weapon, one of which, for example, is like a repulsion grenade that launches people off the surface of the asteroid or wherever you are, off into space and hopefully to their suffocating death. Pretty neat.

The levels are very cool and consist mostly of space. There are asteroid belts to fly around, mining facilities and other industrial themed levels. You basically begin each level flying toward some space rocks. You can use a boost to propel yourself faster. You can also tilt and roll to go in all directions. It can get quite disorienting because in the blackness of space, everything is, well, black, and events are happening all around you. The map tries to tell you where other players are, but I didn't get good at reading it. I often got shot and had no idea where from. Sometimes, the screen edge would flash indicating the direction, and other times not. Even if I could turn the right way, that player could now be above, below, on the other side of me, behind an asteroid, or boosted away. All the asteroids and such provide a lot of cover, basically serving as giant confusing barriers to your line of sight. Battle in space is hectic, shooting at flying characters and boosting around, looking in all directions for danger.

I found battle on the surfaces a bit more comfortable, but less exciting. If you push F, you 'attach' to a surface and can then kind of space walk on it. Attaching leaves you vulnerable to attacks from above in space, but you have to attach to capture nodes and whatever to meet victory conditions. I didn't get a good sense of the game modes, though I played a few. I did notice a domination type where you hold nodes, but I was busy figuring out how to fly around and shoot stuff. My lifespan in Shattered Horizon was generally quite short, but by the end, I was engaging in some satisfying gun fights in space, enough to make me glad I tried out the game. There were many more people online here than Lead and Gold, and the game is certainly unique.