By Wedgeh on 14 Dec 08:05 PM
So, in the not so distant and quite plausible future, Mankind have been taking advantage of the Moon's natural resources - mining minerals, searching for the existence of the Clangers and hosting I'm a Lunar Celebrity Beam Me Up Scotty! When suddenly the Moon explodes due to a catastrophic disaster in one of the mining facilities, scattering millions of tonnes of debris into space, most of which settle in orbit around Earth. A conflict opens up between two factions, the MMC and the ISA which brings us dear players into the picture by choosing which side we wish to play as in this 32 player, Multiplayer only, Zero Gravity FPS title from the fine chaps at the Futuremark Game Studios.
If you have read my previous previews of the games here and here, then you should be familiar with the concepts of the game, however if you haven't then I shall provide you with a brief summary.
Shattered Horizon is the first of what I hope to be many titles to appear out of the doors of FGS, utilising a modified engine which powered 3DMark Vantage so you can expect outstanding visual effects bursting onto your screen in this game.
It's worth noting while not having a ridiculous set of minimum requirements to run this game, it does however require Direct X 10 or higher which simply means if you're still on Windows XP then I'm afraid this game is a no go area for you.
As I mentioned before the game is a FPS title set in space, this means you have complete freedom of movement along any axis you so wish to zoom along. Now, what Futuremark have managed to create, via I can only assume is some form of witch craft, is a completely intuitive method of controlling your character in this zero gravity environment. The vast majority of FPS gamers will instantly pick up the basics of movement, they will quickly adapt to the momentum of your character after shooting themselves off a rock into space and in no time at all they will be swooping and looping and doing other manoeuvres that end in "ooping" to evade their adversaries in order to get themselves into that optimal position to strike.
You have a number of game modes, ranging from straight team deathmatch, capture and hold and attack & defend over the currently available four maps. Now you may think this is a small number of maps, and I would agree but the fellows at FGS are constantly creating new maps and offering them to the community as DLC content.
Upon firing the game up you notice that everything is nice, pretty and shiny making you go "Oooh Ahhh, That's Nice", you'll also be like this throughout the game as there's lots of views in the game that make you just stop and admire the lighting or the artwork or a combination of both, which will inevitably leads to you being shot.
Lighting plays a huge part in this game, the glow from your thrusters, the flash from your rifle, even the glow from your rifle display, the natural light casting shadows over the environment, it's all been lovingly designed to be pretty yet an inherent game mechanic. You see, these pretty glowing lights is generally your visual give-aways to enemy positions, that muzzle flash on the horizon, the trail from your thruster exhausts shooting across the map, all of these things will give your position away to the enemy.
However you may activate silent running mode, this will shut down all your suit's systems bar life support while you slowly drift through space as you sneakily try and flank the enemy without giving away any visual clues to your whereabouts. While this sounds like an appealing tactic, you must remember that you will have no external audio, you're in space and no one can hear you scream therefore your suit simulates the sounds of the environment. Also, no radar or thrusters to help movement so it's down to your eyes to spot something worthwhile attacking before rebooting the system to blast back into combat.
Additionally, when you're spotted by your opponents, your position then becomes visible on every member of that teams' radar, pop silent running and you disappear quicker than being shot with Barry Scott's Cillit Bang. My only reservation would be that while it's a nice system to evade people, I don't think it's enough to shake the hardcore players from launching a volley of bullets with pinpoint accuracy into your helmet causing you to depressurise which inevitably leads to your death.
So the weaponry in the game is rather limited.... Well you only get one weapon, the trusty assault rifle, equipped with a scope and a under-barrel grenade launcher with a four round capacity and three different grenade modes. While this puts everyone on a level playing field in regards to the weaponry, it can be detrimental to the longevity of the game if there's no variation for the player. However you are an astronaut in space and the last thing you want is a multitude of weapons dangling across your back while you fly through the stars.
Perhaps a compromise may be having a selection of weapons at your disposal yet only allowed to wield one at a time, switching out after death like switching between classes in Team Fortress 2 or the Battlefield series, or even just the addition of a side arm would have been nice too, either way I hope Futuremark address this issue or the game could become stale for players which would be a shame.
The game very kindly tracks your own stats and generates a performance page for yourself so you may keep tabs of how you are progressing online which is a nice touch but simply boils down to pure e-peen waving between the cream of the crop, though the main plus point for me is that they stuck to using dedicated servers.
Oh Lord have mercy, how I loathed Infinity Ward after they announced the decision to move away from dedicated servers for PC play for Modern Warfare 2, in favour of some hideous match making system. So yes, you can happily play on dedicated servers feeling relieved that little Billy McNoobsworth won't rage quit the game and halt the flow of combat as he was the sessions host after being shot in the face for the 17th time in a row and making everyone call him every name under the sun while the game searches for a new host.
For a very reasonable price on Steam, oh yes that's right I forgot to mention the game is Digital Distribution only, Shattered Horizon is a decent first attempt into the gaming market, it's not without it's minor flaws but I'm sure FGS will take on board the feedback in order to possibly make changes or just to reference to it in the future on a possible second game from them. However I do feel it is a game that should grace your gaming collection as it does offer a unique multiplayer experience.
