[Less Massive] The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare

(Disclosure: The review copy of this game was provided to us)

I wouldn’t be doing my job as a guy who writes about games online if I didn’t wax poetic constantly about how the new generation of games are all garbage in comparison to the older, and how you kids today wouldn’t know quality gaming if it was included as a separate DLC season pass. Now that you understand my unquestioned and sarcastic superiority in the way of gaming, let’s continue.

The Mean Greens caught my eye for two reasons: One, it is an army men game. Two, it plays like an older shooter, with none of the leveling or weapon unlocks that have become commonplace thanks to Call of Duty and Team Fortress 2. The premise is as simple as the gameplay: Green and tan plastic soldiers are massacring each other in a war over who knows what. Territory? Plastic? Who cares?

I’d also be lying if I said that Plastic Warfare’s visuals didn’t pull me in. This game looks fantastic, pulling off amazing detail in environments that really offer a convincing feel of being a one inch tall plastic toy. The detail on objects is incredible, from the grainy texture of the wooden blocks to the shiny plastic toys that cover the landscape. The soundtrack is generic but well orchestrated. The game does also carry an interesting knockoff of Flight of the Valkyries, not to mention a birthday song that might get stuck in your head.

The two armies battle it out in a third person shooter spanning ten maps and ten game modes. Mean Greens is both blessed and cursed by tying its game modes to maps, not counting those that are released in the future. Presently each map is its own self contained mode, meaning each mode only has one map. While it helps to keep the game simple, it’s disappointing that I can’t play deathmatch in the bathtub, or capture the flag in the toybox.

Out of the ten game modes, most are pretty standard. You have your deathmatch, capture the flag (two takes on it), domination, king of the hill, capture points, and team deathmatch. The rest are inventive takes on existing concepts. One mode is set on a giant foosball table with both teams trying to score goals. Another has one team trying to light candles on a giant birthday cake. My personal favorite, deep freeze, has the two teams battling it out in a freezer environment, using their flamethrowers in a race to melt their dinosaur from a block of ice. The map starts out as a semi-cooperative mode, with both teams trying to melt the same ice cube.

Weaponry is similarly generic, not to mention the game hands you the entire loadout from the get go. Weapons boil down to basic automatic rifle, sniper, shotgun, bazooka, and flame thrower. Each weapon has a rather low amount of ammo that slowly replenishes once you run out, although you’re pretty much guaranteed to die in the time it takes for the cooldown to pass. The plus side of having every weapon is that you’re equipped for just about any situation. The bad side is, that’s not always great in competitive games.

For every map/mode that takes the winner’s circle, however, there are a few losers. The game modes are fine, in theory, but many fail either in level design or via game mechanics. The fast respawn and the fact that the player immediately starts off with all of the game’s weapons make it difficult for one team to really press on the other, especially in smaller areas. Many of the objective based maps are just ridiculously difficult, bordering unfair. The bathtub level requires players to use slow moving, heavily exposed floating duckies to get flags back to their base. Considering every player spawns with sniper rifles and bazookas, you have to be dealing with a very inept defense for either team to come out victorious. The same goes for Kitchen Run, which has no avenue to flank and generally ends in a no-score match.

There isn’t nearly enough feedback when getting shot, and often times you’re likely to not realize that you’ve been hit by a sniper from halfway across the map because there is no gunshot sound or “thunk” or reaction from your character. Close quarters battles often devolve into bazooka and grenade spam as freshly spawned players walk into battle with those weapons up, throwing away any level of pacing that the game might have achieved.

At the cost of $14.99 (presently on sale for $10), Plastic Warfare is only lacking in players. Somehow the game got saddled with a massive number of dedicated servers (more than I’m willing to count) with only a small number of them populated. I’d also like to see the game open up with more open maps, ones that allow for alternate paths to flank enemies, and support for more players per server.

Otherwise, this is a great game to lose time on.

Beta Perspective: Paladins

Hi-Rez Studios is one of those “follow the trend” developers, one that doesn’t seem to have an explicit purpose like Treyarch (first person shooters), Obsidian Entertainment (role playing games), or Sergey Titov (shovelware). Instead, the company’s development history can be summed up as whatever seems to be most popular at the time, with its first two ventures turning out to be financial sinkers. With the success of Smite on PC and Xbox One, it was likely guaranteed that Hi-Rez’s next product would be something along those same lines. Introduce Paladins.

I like to think of Paladins as the love child of Team Fortress 2, Smite, and Hearthstone. The game is a Frankenstein’s monster mash of first person shooting, MOBA objectives, with a splash of collectible card game customization that keeps people awake (and spending money) on Hearthstone.

First, the SMITE part. The meat of Paladins plays out nearly exactly like its MOBA counterpart (at least in the one game mode currently available), with two teams of five players of unique class fighting for control of capture points. The team that captures said point spawns a siege weapon of incredible strength that lumbers towards the enemy base. With the help of the siege weapon, the team must knock down two layers of base defense before destroying the core itself and claiming victory. Once the siege weapon is destroyed, the timer restarts and a new point opens.

Paladin’s characters are bound to be familiar to anyone with MOBA experience. You have the turret and shield-laying engineer-type, the bow-wielding ranger scout that can reveal hidden enemies, the healing paladin, the tank, etc. Each class has three powers plus a mount to allow for faster travel around the map, and even the maps themselves seem to be structured similar to the three-lane system present in MOBAs.

But where Paladins is similar to SMITE, it is equally different. Like any other first person shooter, you have to aim your attacks. You won’t find trash mobs to grind money and experience on, in fact there is no money as the inventory and item shop didn’t make the roll over either. Rather, players can gain points through capturing objectives, dealing damage, and defeating enemies, in addition to a rolling experience that keeps poorer performing players from falling too far out of the loop. Finally, the level cap is 5, with much of the power difference coming from cards that become available as you level up.

The Hearthstone level of customization is ultimately what sets Paladins worlds apart from MOBAs and other team-based first person shooters. In one match I was able to turn my archer into a mean green killing machine, not only capable of landing major hits that slowed down targets, but healed me at the same time. My engineer in another match was capable of a shield turret combo that healed me while the shield damaged anyone who dared to get too close.

I also have to hand it to Hi-Rez for adding in a casual version of the game to even the playing field. The standard game mode doesn’t allow you to choose which cards you go into battle with, instead picking them randomly out of your inventory. It’s a nice idea to keep the game fair for everyone, rather than forcing newer players to go up against seasoned veterans with stacked decks, but the effect can be frustrating. While the game is still being heavily balanced, the game mode does make it possible to go into battle with none of your useful cards.

The more you play Paladins, the more you unlock cards, and the more tinkering you can do with each individual character. I heavily enjoyed my time playing in the beta so far, and look forward to the new characters and game modes that will be coming out in the coming months.

As with previous Hi-Rez games, you can nab a beta key by buying a founder’s pack ($20), by registering for the beta, or by begging someone in the community for one of their extra invitations.

H1Z1 My Evil Ways E3 Trailer

Sony Online Entertainment has released the latest trailer for H1Z1, titled ‘My Evil Ways.’ The animations look a little chunky and are more than likely unfinished. The video explains that H1Z1 will be released in early access on Steam, as well as being released on PS4. Sony’s E3 press conference later today will offer more gameplay.

(Source: SOE Press Release)

Super Data Research: ARPU In Shooters

Superdata Research has once again come around with new insight into the industry. This time, the marketing group has come up with a list showcasing the average revenue per user of the top free to play shooters on the market. The list notes that games like League of Legends have nine players for every person playing Dota2, but that the latter brings in higher revenue per user because of its more core audience. World of Tanks and Team Fortress 2 lead the list by a wide margin.

You can check out more detail on the list and analysis on why it is important at the link below.

(Source: Superdata Research)

Mark Kern Removed From Red 5 Studios

Hello, timing. Earlier today, Gamefront.com broke the news that CEO Mark Kern has been voted out by board members at Red 5 Studios. An internal email leaked detailing that Kern no longer had any authority within the company, and that further information would be given at a subsequent company meeting. Red 5 reached out to Gamefront, confirming that Kern was indeed no longer with the company.

As of Thursday, December 19th, Mark Kern is no longer the Chief Executive Officer of Red 5 Studios. Mark founded Red 5 Studios in 2006 to provide exceptional game entertainment along with a world-class team of developers working on the MMO Shooter, Firefall. Red 5 Vice President of Development, James Macauley, will be moving into the role of acting CEO. The team at Red 5 continues work on Firefall and looks forward to all that we have to offer in 2014.

The Escapist has reported contact from Red 5 employees detailing Kern as absent, visiting only to make arbitrary decisions, and disruptive to the company.

(Source: Gamefront)
(Source: Escapist)

Face of Mankind Kickstarting An Overhaul

Face of Mankind is one of those games that most of you have likely tried at one point, or at the very least heard about it as a concept. The game relies almost solely on player interaction, between individuals and the factions that they represent. Alliances come and go, as do wars, and territories change hands on a regular basis. As an MMO, Face of Mankind has carried a small but dedicated base of players, which Nexeon Technologies hopes to grow with the announcement of Face of Mankind: Fall of the Dominion.

Fall of the Dominion seeks to relaunch Face of Mankind and create what its predecessor had always hoped to be, allowing players to have a real impact on the world around them. That said, Nexeon Technologies needs a cool fifty grand in order to see that dream to reality, so the team has appealed to the Kickstarter gamers to see their project through.

In Face of Mankind: Fall of the Dominion, the players may have as much freedom as they want; at the center of this lies an incredibly powerful Faction system. This system creates the foundation for every mechanic in the game, with almost all conflict potentially escalating to war if the politics aren’t played well. How it pans out is entirely up to the players to decide. Players can create their own faction, capture territories, and dominate the universe.

Can anyone say MMO Fallout Decomposed Boot Corporation?

(Source: Kickstarter)

Defiance Initial Impressions

Defiance is simultaneously one of the greatest and one of the worst MMO shooters I have ever played. On one hand, it brings back thoughts of what Tabula Rasa might have looked like if it had been created for a 2013 audience, an open world, seamless shooter with RPG elements and guns. On the other hand, it can be shallow and incredibly juvenile at times. So let’s dive in, shall we?

1. The Story

Defiance’s story will likely completely slip by you if you haven’t been paying attention to the upcoming TV series. The basic story is that the alien race known as the Votan comes to settle on Earth after their home planet is destroyed by a stellar collision. While discussion between Votan and Human governments for peaceful settlement dragged on, a high ranking Votan ambassador is assassinated sparking a war between the two species. This war culminates in the explosion of the Ark fleet in orbit, which rains down destruction and accidentally unleashes terraforming technology and introduces animal and plant species to Earth. The debris from the Arkfall event still rains down on the planet periodically.

This is where you come in. As an Ark hunter, you enter the Bay area under the employment of Karl Von Bach, seeking advanced alien technology that is falling to earth with these Arkfall events. Along the way, you pick up side missions and come across various self-repeating missions that involve saving soldiers or finding new technology.

Which brings me to a complaint about Defiance the game, and its “maturity.” Remember when the Battlestar Galactica remake really overused the word “frak” to bypass the censor? Defiance does the same with the use of the term “shtako,” running the word into the ground with all the grace and subtlety of a teenager who just learned a new swear word and wants to include it in every sentence so people know how clever he is. And the effect plays out even worse in an environment that has no censors, since the characters swear anyway and the whole thing just becomes pointless and annoying. I also don’t need to hear every five minutes about how my NPC partner won’t be joining me on this mission because she’s drunk, or how the commander is surprised to see that she has all of her clothes on.

2. Missions

Progression in Defiance is defined by a series of quests, trials, and mini-games, and ends up being one of the highlights of the game. Each character has a personal storyline, dealing with Von Bach Industries and the hunt for alien artifacts that I referenced earlier. The main quest series actually has some decent dialogue and cutscenes. There is another line of missions that ties directly into the television show, and will receive regular updates once the show starts airing. There are also one-off side missions that become available the more you complete the main storyline quests.

Players of recent MMOs should be familiar with the random encounters. Not really random since they appear at the same point every time, these encounters are essentially short public events that occur on a regular basis. You might pass by a downed helicopter and see “revive the pilots” appear on the screen. Revive the pilots, and you’ll have to defend them from incoming mutant soldiers. In addition to the random encounters, you’ll also come across mini-games of skill. These include time trials with your vehicle, rampages (Saints Row players will recognize this), and hot shots which are basically rampages but with the added requirement of not shooting civilians.

I’m not done talking about content yet. As you level up, you unlock cooperative instances. Raids, basically. There are instanced pvp modes including team deathmatch, capture and hold, and resource gathering as well as a shadow war which takes place in the live area. Pursuits act as Defiance’s achievement system, offering rewards for accomplishing things like modding your weapon or achieving weapon skills.

3. Leveling

Defiance’s leveling system is a little overwhelming. Your main “level” is called your EGO rating, and is leveled by completing quests, killing things, and generally doing what you would expect to gain experience for in an MMO. As you rank up in your EGO, that is how you gain points to put into your skills and unlock perks and new abilities. This is where it gets kind of confusing. Each gun you pick up will have its own experience bar. That bar doesn’t level up the gun itself, it feeds experience into your skill in that gun type. So you pick up a submachine gun and level your submachine gun skill. Once the gun has filled up its bar, it no longer contributes to your overall skill level.

This doesn’t really bother me though because the leveling process for weapon skills seems ultimately unimportant. If it hadn’t been for the pursuits requiring leveling in certain weapon skills, I probably wouldn’t even care about them at all. Interestingly enough you level your three vehicle classes just by driving them. So you’ll just be driving along and then BAM! You’re level three in offroad vehicles. Um, thanks Defiance.

4. The Best Parts

So to start wrapping up this impressions piece, I thought I’d first discuss what is so great about Defiance. As I pointed out in the beginning of this article, I am getting a heavy Tabula Rasa vibe, but what Tabula Rasa should have been. My main complaint in MMO shooters in the past, and this goes for games like All Points Bulletin, is that the developers for some reason don’t give the guns any power to them. In All Points Bulletin you felt like you were carrying around peashooters, and Tabula Rasa similarly had kind of underwhelming gunplay. Defiance is first and foremost a shooter, and Trion never forgets it. For an action MMO to do well, it has to blur that ever-present set of dice that are dictating your damage dealt and taken. Defiance does this extremely well.

Also, the story missions are without a doubt the game’s highlight. The lawkeeper Jon Cooper is one of the most memorable, and actually one of the few memorable, characters I’ve seen in an MMO in a long time. I actually look forward to the story missions and how the cutscenes play out, and in one scene where Cooper has to mercy kill a construction worker, needless to say it was one of the most powerful moments in recent memory. I’ve also been having a lot of fun playing around with hotshots and side missions, including my inevitable victory over that damn chick shoot mission. You have to shoot chickens with a gun with limited ammo, and I found that there is a small window of opportunity where you can throw a grenade, and the game lets you continue playing with your normal weapons until those run out of ammo as well. It’s an exploit, I’m sure it will be patched in that April 15th content update, but I’m willing to savor my gold trophy for the mini-game until then.

5. Aimless Ranting

All of that considered, I can’t help but find Defiance’s problems to be more than annoying. I know that Trion is making equal advertisement to the shooter crowd as they are the MMO gamer, but does everything have to explode? Alien “mortars” fire explosive rounds into the air toward the player with amazing accuracy, all things considered. Flying bugs fire rounds that not only explode, but they also hold you in place. Hell, I even saw my character get headbutted by one of the larger Hellbugs, and there was an explosion. There are enough explosions in Defiance to make Michael Bay uncomfortable, and the more I progress through Defiance, the less sensible they seem to become.

Which leads me to the second thing that I hate about Defiance: Movement. The controls are fine for a third person shooter, although the process of entering and exiting a car could be more responsive. I’m talking about the heavy use of this movement slowing goo. Movement debuffs are obnoxious enough when just a few types of NPCs use it, but since Defiance has just a handful of mob types, you’re going to see it quite a bit. I have had a few times where five of those Hellbug flying mortar things pop up at once and just barrage you to death in seconds, because they have no cooldown on this explosive, sticky, insanely obnoxious attack.

The UI for Defiance is also one of the worst I’ve seen in recent days, and not just because it took me a good ten minutes of searching before I finally figured out where the “exit” button was. For those who don’t know, in order to exit Defiance you must first hit escape to bring up the main menu, click on the button in the lower left hand corner to bring up the radial menu, then avert your eyes to the top right hand side of the screen where the “exit” button sits. Honestly, it sounds easier than it is since you expect the exit to be somewhere on the radial in the center of the screen, so you look through all the options and still can’t find it, and the exit button blends in pretty well with the background with the blue on blue. It’s sort of a hiding-in-plain-sight deal.

And while I’m on the subject of the UI and I’m tearing this game apart more than I expected to, the chat system is terrible and nobody is using it. The chat disappears far too quickly, the profanity filter is ****, and not enough chat displays. You also can’t move the chat box from the lower right hand corner. I’m surprised to see that Trion, a company that has released an MMO in the past and therefore should know what they’re doing when it comes to basic interface, aesthetics, etc, would have screwed up so badly on the way players interface with Defiance, at least on the PC version. The system seems developed for console users with little regard to PC players.

6. Conclusion

I am having a lot of fun in Defiance, even though my article may seem slanted towards the ranting side. If you come into this with the expectation of Tom Clancy level of strategy, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Defiance falls somewhere between the tactical planning of Rainbow Six games and the beer chugging fist bumping Call of Duty bros, and makes a place for itself in the genre that is unique to the other games you might find on the market.

And I have to applaud Trion for how they have once again aggressively patched their game post-launch. They did the same with Rift, and I can only imagine that we’ll see some heavy discounts on Defiance in the near future to try and shop the game to as many people as possible, especially once the show airs. While I own the PC version, apparently Trion were putting out multiple patches per day on the Xbox360 to fix problems as they popped up. The console versions didn’t have a great launch, but Trion’s been working around the clock to get everything as smooth as possible.

Black Prophecy Shutting Down In September

I find myself asking this question a lot: Why does everything I love die? Black Prophecy is easily one of Gamigo’s most impressive looking titles, not to mention a unique player in its own right. Launched last year, Black Prophecy is a sci-fi MMO similar to Eve Online but with a more action-oriented control scheme and a more traditional MMO quest system. It wasn’t perfect, but for many players left on their own after the cancellation of Jumpgate Evolution, it was something to call home.

Unfortunately, times have not been so great to the game or its developer. Back in February, we mentioned that Reakktor Media was insolvent and regardless of the quality of Black Prophecy, it wasn’t bringing in enough money to keep afloat. So it comes as terrible news that Black Prophecy will shut down on September 26th. Players will no longer be able to buy cash shop funds starting today.

(Source: Announcement)

Why Aren't You Playing: Bullet Run

Whenever I hear about free to play shooter MMOs I think of one thing: over-extensive cash shops. I think about time-limited cash shop weapons and upgrades, with the option of spending a very long time grinding through kills in order to nab that better weapon. For myself, and a number of others, such titles start out fun but quickly lose their edge as the slow grind to achieve new weapons becomes longer and what might normally be random, mindless violence is now less enjoyable than slogging through quests in a fantasy MMO. Thankfully, Bullet Run is not that title.

First things first, before you can start shooting people you must create an avatar capable of holding an automatic weapon. Character customization at creation is virtually nonexistent. Apart from a type, tone, and gender, there isn’t much you are able to alter about your avatar. All characters start with the same basic submachine gun. The in-game marketplace is used to purchase additional cosmetic gear as well as new weapons and attachments, both of which can be purchased with either Station Cash or currency acquired through regular play.

Talking about Bullet Run’s gameplay aspects almost seems redundant, because if you’ve played any other recent first person shooter, you already know what to expect. There are two game modes present, Team Deathmatch and Dominion. The former features two teams of players sparring over a set of maps to see who can rack up the highest score in the time allotted. Dominion, on the other hand, has one team attacking a set of nodes as the other team attempts to defend the map. Dominion is played in two halves, allowing each team a chance to attack and defend. As you complete matches and kill other players, you gain experience and currency which are used to level up and purchase additional weapons and attachments. Abilities are docked and slowly build up a charge over the course of the match as you kill enemies and gain points, and encompass everything from mobile turrets to massive chainguns.

As far as cash shop titles go, Bullet Run scores a few points with its durability system. In many other free to play shooters, items offered on the marketplace are limited by time, often times not allowing the player to purchase a permanent version with in-game currency (assuming one exists at all). Once the time limit has passed, your purchased weapon is useless. In Bullet Run, weapons operate on a durability system where the weapon must be repaired with either Station Cash or currency. The advantage of the system, however, is that even if you allow the durability to run out, the weapon can still be used at a 10% loss in damage. And considering the fast paced nature of Bullet Run, a 10% drop in your gun’s effectiveness isn’t going to lose you any battles.

Playing Bullet Run isn’t all run and gun, however. One feature added to give an advantage to players who can keep their cool under stress is a sliding bar when you reload. If you have decent reflexes, you can easily receive a speedier reload and some point bonuses as well. On the other hand, you can let the reload take its course, or risk jamming the gun and leaving yourself open to attack. When you find someone in a tight corridor and both of you empty your clips, the reload bonus can mean the difference between life and death.

Where Bullet Run falls short is content, the game lacks variety in almost every sector possible. Most important: There are only two modes to choose from, Team Deathmatch and Dominion. And while the marketplace plays host to a wide assortment of guns, the cosmetic clothing and hairstyles offered are few. Even the commentary by the characters in-game is lacking, with the same phrases being repeated over and over. The end result is that Bullet Run feels incomplete, as if the game had launched as soon as there was a stable product to show, rather than waiting until more content could be added. This isn’t to say that Bullet Run is a bad game by any means, it functions as intended, is fun to play, and the cash shop is much more player-friendly than similar titles.

With further development, and assuming Sony doesn’t cut the game short like a certain other developer, Bullet Run will enjoy a loyal following of shooter fans.

Pros:

Generous cash shop: Weapons/Attachments can reasonably be purchased with in-game currency.
Functional: I didn’t come across any notable bugs, and the servers even managed to stay stable on launch night.
Stable: Lag was not a problem in any of the matches I played.

Cons:

The game lacks content.

Why Aren’t You Playing: Bullet Run

With further development, and assuming Sony doesn’t cut the game short like a certain other developer, Bullet Run will enjoy a loyal following of shooter fans.

Pros:

Generous cash shop: Weapons/Attachments can reasonably be purchased with in-game currency.
Functional: I didn’t come across any notable bugs, and the servers even managed to stay stable on launch night.
Stable: Lag was not a problem in any of the matches I played.

Cons:

The game lacks content.

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1. The Story

2. Missions

3. Leveling

4. The Best Parts

5. Aimless Ranting

6. Conclusion

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