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Thursday 6 March, 2008
GAMELOG #2
GAMEPLAY:
As always, with customization, comes trends. Your defense isn't complete without a Troll carrying an accuracy-enhanced minigun or a Dwarf that can summon creatures and cast ice barriers. Offense will almost never capture a flag without an elf that has a sword paired with enhanced reflexes for bullet deflecting and increased speed. Certain exceptions always apply, and other combinations are usually more fun. But people always figure out what is most effective.
The tutorials, as helpful as they are, grow boring and a bit tedious after a while. I got tired of hearing the instructors voice. He talked entirely too much to explain relatively self-explanatory things. I ended up ignoring most of what he said, spamming 'X' to continue through his talking, and talking to my roommate until I was able to move again.
This game came out a long time ago. Around it's release date, I'm sure there was a lot of activity, but now there is next to none. I went online after the tutorials and there were about twenty matches happening, total. I joined a few, and the players were standing around beating their teammates with the flag they were supposed to capture. Nobody was actually playing. That left me with bot matches, and I had pretty much had my fill of those by the end of the tutorials. Overall, I'm really glad I didn't spend the money to buy this game, because I shot through pretty much all it had to offer in about three hours.
DESIGN:
The levels are designed to take advantage of the enhanced mobility and defensive capabilities of the spells. There are lots of high ledges and long drops, perfect to teleport up or fling someone from. There are rooms ideal for refuge where you can cast healing spells, and bridges and ramps for barricading. The environment combined with either offense or defense, and what stage in the match you happen to be at, really promote on-the-fly changes in style and strategy. I think this was well done. Not perfect, by any means, but well done.
Each race looks distinct. Humans are rather default, Dwarves are about half their height, Trolls are very large and box shaped, and Elves are tall and very thin. This distinction is very important in games like this where what race you're fighting makes a large difference. I don't want to approach a Dwarf for fear of losing my mana, and I know if I get into trouble I can outrun that Troll. Magic objects are also very large and distinct. Trees of Life are stationary objects that heal you, and appear as a rather large golden tree with glowing particles floating from it. The ice move produces crystals about as tall as a Human that are rather hard to miss. Summoned monsters are taller than the other races and are colored very brightly as blue or red. The idea is, you always know what each object or creature is without having to concentrate on figuring it out. You can spend more time thinking of how to behave accordingly. The only issue I had with this was, while all of that is distinct, the team colors are very dull. I ended up concentrating on player heads and shoulders to figure out teams, as the red team wore a headband and the blue had shoulder pads. This wasn't that big of an issue, and I got past it relatively fast, but I think it would have been overlooked entirely if the colors had been more clear.
I was really looking forward to a campaign and story behind this game. I'd heard good things about the Shadowrun RPGs that predated this game, and I have a soft spot for fantasy worlds. The campaign (or lack thereof) was disappointing, as I hope I've made clear. That didn't stop them from trying to add a backstory anyway. Before each tutorial mission was a sorry excuse for a cutscene, mostly consisting of still images and a female narrator telling you the story. You never participate in the story, it is merely giving some facts you don't care about as the character's motivation for shooting the other guys. I watched two and skipped the rest, as they felt like a waste of time. Essentially, they told you that people found magic, some people are trying to steal your artifacts, and we're going to train you to use magic so you can stop the thieves. That truncates to 'shoot the guys trying to take the shiny thing' and that's about all that matters.
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