Whoa, this has been in development for three years? The current version doesn’t look very different from that alpha video linked above from three years ago.
-TomYou’re definitely right that the look hasn’t changed much, but it plays better now, I think. I spent some time with it way back in alpha, and I thought it was lacking in charm and high on the inscrutable scale. It’s better now on both fronts—a little more approachable and more forgiving, and a lot more charming in the gleeful cartoonish violence.
Given three years of development, I should hope it plays better! :)
I couldn’t really get used to the whole idea of playing a first-person shooter from a third-person, top-down, fixed camera perspective. It was hard enough maneuvering around behind buildings and whatnot, but what really killed it was trying to suss out lines of sight from, say, the top of a building down onto a street. Cute presentation and certainly plenty of action, but this new perspective on familiar gameplay doesn’t really work for me.
-Tom
This looks like I could like it, but…
Maybe it’s just me, but every Youtube video I’m looking at for this game makes it look like there is some kind of blurry film put over the top of the whole video, except for when they bring up a menu, and then only the menu looks fine.
I have absolutely no problem with the simplified or minimalistic graphics that this game apparently uses, but I’m finding it difficult to see those graphics underneath that layer of (for lack of a better term) colored Saran Wrap. It’s hard to distinguish things. Maybe I’m just looking at the wrong videos though.
Giles, I think that’s a reasonable complaint. Some of the maps have a very next-gen-2008 brown look to them for sure, and the voxel graphics for soldiers and guns are naturally somewhat blurry-feeling. It doesn’t Youtube especially well, though—it’s more noticeably lacking in contrast and distinction than most games, going by a quick comparison. If you like the way it looks in screenshots but not videos, you might end up liking it overall. Screenshots are more accurate, in my opinion. If you like those, it might be worth a try.
Tom, I don’t know when you last tried it, but is it possible things have changed since you did? The controls make sense to me. (Probably in part because I used to be a big Infantry Online player, and the top-down style comes pretty naturally to me as a result.) They’re very twin-stick now—WASD for movement in the cardinal directions, mouse for pointing. As for LOS, that’s still tricky, but there’s a better indication of it now. Whenever your crosshair is obstructed, you get a line from the obstruction to the crosshair, so I’ve found it difficult but possible to work out the issue.
That seems to be the case…I think. Hard to tell from the screenshots, but a lot more of those seem to be okay than the videos. Thanks! I think I’ll give the demo a shot.
most people who stream, (even very popular streamers it seems) tend to have very blurry streams/videos for anything in motion. It took me quite awhile to get my stream clear enough to be acceptable to me. It’s a huge pet peeve of mine to see blurry video though. Especially when not live
Is anyone still playing this?
If it wasn’t for the laggy servers and the fact that buildings don’t turn transparent when you’re behind them, I’d say this is a brilliant co-op multiplayer game. It’s come a very long way from the first version I played (possibly before Mr Bismarck even made this thread).
Arise, thread!
Amazingly, this game is still being well-supported. They patched it generally monthly, released a couple new free maps in December (plus they do holiday events), patched in controller support in February so it could be played on a Steam Deck, and a new DLC a couple days ago (mostly a graphics update if you want it, but one new light armored unit and a large increase to your permanent stash, which I generally haven’t used but I guess should). They also announced that an Eastern Front DLC is under construction, so get your Panzerfausts ready for the incoming T-34s.
I think of it as a sort of very large version of Robotron, and it has grown on me to become one of my go-to simple games (I haven’t tried the controller support yet for even more Robotron-esque gameplay). Once you get a handle on moving and aiming in separate directions, and that cover is important because it actually works (including crests of hills & depressions), it is full of enjoyable gunplay. I’m not sure I would call it easy in multiplayer or the default single-player settings, but in single-player you can crank down the difficulty to “I was cloned from a combination of Superman and Rambo.”
They have made a lot of progress on the AI since the early releases. Your AI squadmates are not complete idiots (they do have some trouble with enemy hardpoints & mounted weapons, but they often can keep flankers off you while you take out the hardpoint). The AI will prioritize more dangerous targets, but does have trouble with your armored units. If you can get command of a tank, you can break the line easily if you don’t roar ahead too quickly & don’t get ahead of your infantry screen (kind of as it should play out). If you stay in one spot too long, say you are carrying a LMG & found a great position for it, expect the enemy to toss a grenade in your lap or call in air or artillery support to kill you.
If you see it cheap in a Steam sale, or already have it in your library from a previous one, I’d recommend giving it a go. It has a bit of a steep learning curve, but that plateaus quickly.
Nicely put!
Look, Supertanker, I know you’re a lawyer and not a scientist, but if you’re going to make a clone, why bother watering down the invulnerable alien with the 'roided up barely literate human? Please leave the cloning to the experts. :)
Thanks for the heads-up, though! I saw this was still getting support but haven’t jumped back in. And just to clarify, have you been playing multiplayer or just enjoying it as a Robotronic comp stomp?
-Tom
Mostly as single player. Usually I’m in multiplayer pretty late, so the Pacific Time Multiplayer Curse means there aren’t a lot of people online. The holiday bosses were very tough, so co-op with humans was a big help in killing those things. Let me try my lab coat on again: the Halloween boss was like fighting The Flash crossed with Freddy Krueger. Very fast-moving, no ranged weapons, but almost instantly lethal melee attacks. Having several humans team up using heavy automatic weapons & explosives made a big difference, as the AI alone would get cut down like wheat.
The holiday bosses are a neat twist for a few weeks, but on the downside, often the server was still up but the holiday boss was dead. Since that’s the victory condition, enemies stopped spawning and there wasn’t anything to do. There’s probably a way the host can reset it, but I’d have to server-hop until I found one that was active.
The stash is mostly a multi-player thing, letting people collect and trade gear picked up from the battlefield. If there’s a way to carry it over from single player, I haven’t figured it out. In solo play, it can last through the different battles of a campaign, letting you keep good stuff you find, saving you the points it would cost to buy one from your Armory if you unlock the weapon. For those that don’t know the basics, you kill stuff and sell captured weapons to your Armory to earn points, then spend points to respawn after dying, buy better gear from your Armory, and call in support (various calibers of artillery support (from 60mm mortars up to 16" Naval gunfire), different sizes or precision of air strikes, squads of reinforcement troops, various vehicles (jeeps & trucks if you just need to move fast, tanks & APCs if you are trying to hold or break through). You unlock enemy weapons for purchase at the Armory by bring some number of captured copies to your Armory. The better the weapon, the more copies are needed.
I’m not sure if they put limits on the stash in multi-player that naturally occur in single-player, like not using German weapons from the Edelweiss DLC in a Pacific Campaign. Those are different save files in single-player, so no moving weapons between them. There were many times in the Pacific Campaign I’d have loved to pull out different weapons. Banzai chargers, since this M1919 isn’t cutting the mustard against all of you, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. MG-42 & his incredible rate of fire.