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I spent quite a bit of time with NetDevil's upcoming shooter Warmonger at the company's anniversary party last week. In fact I spent so much time that the game's developers started talking about it.
When I made my way down the stairs from where they had eight computers set up in a LAN to play the game, a couple of devs looked up at me and one of them said, "We we're just talking about you."
The main reason I spent hours on the game's single map was because I'm a huge shooter fan. That isn't to say that I didn't like the game, just that I like most shooters. But to really sell me on a shooter it has to have, first and foremost, solid gameplay, and a bit of innovation helps as well.
In the case of Warmonger, the gameplay felt solid enough, though the limited weapon selection was a bit of a bummer. And the game's main selling point, its particular flavor of innovation is its heavy reliance on AGEIA's PhysX card.
In Warmonger just about everything is destructible, truly destructible. In fact the only reason that the whole game isn't made up of an entirely destructible environment is that the developers learned early on that doing that left most maps looking like pool tables after a few minutes of play.
Unlike with most shooters, this destructible environment has a significant impact on the way you play a game. You can shoot out stairs from a building, block an access point, you can blow holes in walls, creating new ones, and you can tear apart cover to get to your enemies.
This makes a game like capture the flag a whole lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, while the game will eventually support as many as 64 players in a match, the LAN I played on was set up for eight.
The physics were in full effect when I was playing and it helped create some very memorable moments. Once, a guy took cover behind a wall in this parking garage. The only way to get to him was to go around a car that was laying next to the car, and then turning the corner and trying to take him out before he took me out. But instead, I put two sticky grenades into the wall, blowing it apart, and then opened up into the side of my surprised opponent. Another time, I was chasing a guy making a run for our flag. He chugged around a corner and started running up a set of stairs. Instead of chasing him, I blew away the stairs and shot him as his body plummeted to the ground.
That's fun!
It was a little surprising to find that the build I played only supported four weapons: An assault rifle, a minigun, a rocket launcher and a pistol. All of the weapons had alt-fires, which was nice. My favorite was the assault rifle's grenades which actually sticks to its target before it explodes. The funny thing about the stick grenade is that it sparkles, as if a fuse is burning, while the person's running around with it stuck to them.
The developers said the stick grenade actually started out as a coding error. They were messing around with the bounce on the grenade and they accidentally coded it to stick and loved the result, so they kept it.
The weapons seem fairly balanced, though the significant recoil with the assault rifle and minigun take quite a bit of getting used to.
Overall, Warmonger feels like a pretty robust shooter, especially for one that is going to be absolutely free. In fact, not only will it be free, but the developers have decided to allow you to toggle off the AGIEA PhysX support so you can play the game without the card. And yes, it will still be free.
The only thing I need to see now is if they will add some weapons (I'd suggest a shotgun and a throwable grenade at least), how many maps it will come with and whether they come up with some neat gameplay modes. One of the devs was telling me that there's been talk of a destruction mode, where your goal will be to completely level the other teams building. I love that idea. Especially if it will feature people falling from the collapsing building. Brian Crecente
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I spent quite a bit of time with NetDevil's upcoming shooter Warmonger at the company's anniversary party last week. In fact I spent so much time that the game's developers started talking about it.
When I made my way down the stairs from where they had eight computers set up in a LAN to play the game, a couple of devs looked up at me and one of them said, "We we're just talking about you."
The main reason I spent hours on the game's single map was because I'm a huge shooter fan. That isn't to say that I didn't like the game, just that I like most shooters. But to really sell me on a shooter it has to have, first and foremost, solid gameplay, and a bit of innovation helps as well.
In the case of Warmonger, the gameplay felt solid enough, though the limited weapon selection was a bit of a bummer. And the game's main selling point, its particular flavor of innovation is its heavy reliance on AGEIA's PhysX card.
In Warmonger just about everything is destructible, truly destructible. In fact the only reason that the whole game isn't made up of an entirely destructible environment is that the developers learned early on that doing that left most maps looking like pool tables after a few minutes of play.
Unlike with most shooters, this destructible environment has a significant impact on the way you play a game. You can shoot out stairs from a building, block an access point, you can blow holes in walls, creating new ones, and you can tear apart cover to get to your enemies.
This makes a game like capture the flag a whole lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, while the game will eventually support as many as 64 players in a match, the LAN I played on was set up for eight.
The physics were in full effect when I was playing and it helped create some very memorable moments. Once, a guy took cover behind a wall in this parking garage. The only way to get to him was to go around a car that was laying next to the car, and then turning the corner and trying to take him out before he took me out. But instead, I put two sticky grenades into the wall, blowing it apart, and then opened up into the side of my surprised opponent. Another time, I was chasing a guy making a run for our flag. He chugged around a corner and started running up a set of stairs. Instead of chasing him, I blew away the stairs and shot him as his body plummeted to the ground.
That's fun!
It was a little surprising to find that the build I played only supported four weapons: An assault rifle, a minigun, a rocket launcher and a pistol. All of the weapons had alt-fires, which was nice. My favorite was the assault rifle's grenades which actually sticks to its target before it explodes. The funny thing about the stick grenade is that it sparkles, as if a fuse is burning, while the person's running around with it stuck to them.
The developers said the stick grenade actually started out as a coding error. They were messing around with the bounce on the grenade and they accidentally coded it to stick and loved the result, so they kept it.
The weapons seem fairly balanced, though the significant recoil with the assault rifle and minigun take quite a bit of getting used to.
Overall, Warmonger feels like a pretty robust shooter, especially for one that is going to be absolutely free. In fact, not only will it be free, but the developers have decided to allow you to toggle off the AGIEA PhysX support so you can play the game without the card. And yes, it will still be free.
The only thing I need to see now is if they will add some weapons (I'd suggest a shotgun and a throwable grenade at least), how many maps it will come with and whether they come up with some neat gameplay modes. One of the devs was telling me that there's been talk of a destruction mode, where your goal will be to completely level the other teams building. I love that idea. Especially if it will feature people falling from the collapsing building. Brian Crecente
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