Player Preview - The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare

Title: The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare
Developer: Virtual Basement
Release Date: 9/DEC/2015

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1RJEfA2
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1IL31xI

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the multiplayer third person shooter, The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare, developed by Virtual Basement who helped out Wild Card Develop Ark: Survival Evolved. Plastic Warfare has you playing as toy soldiers from the green and tan opposing factions, fighting it out on school desks, on a birthday cake and even in the freezer.

As a soldier of both the green and tan factions you have multiple different weapons available with no class system or load out restrictions in place. These weapons consist of an assault rifle, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, a rocket launcher and finally a flame thrower all available to you on your quick bar. Obviously there are a couple of weapons like the rocket launcher and sniper rifle that would be overpowered in the right hands if they had a lot of ammo to use so instead Plastic Warfare limits these weapons with the rocket launcher only having 1 shot and the sniper rifle only having 6 shots before they go on cool down, the cool down of which will probably last longer then you will survive in the game. The same kind of cool down system applies to grenades, avoiding any kind of grenade spam however the grenade and the rocket launcher both are almost always used first after respawning before players fall back to the other weapons. The actual gunplay of the different weapons is fairly average heavily leaning on the arcade style of shooting with no real impact or force behind them however it’s adequate enough to still be fun especially when you consider the game to be more of a party game third person shooter then something that tries to be super realistic.

As for your soldiers movement there are a couple of interesting mechanics implemented all of which are tied to your stamina bar or what is more of a battery level for this game that can be seen at the bottom left of the screen next to your health. Performing any kind of movement except just walking will eat into your battery level. Depleting your battery won’t make you unable to jump, jog or dodge rather it will prevent you from being able to sprint, something that makes it extremely hard for your enemies to hit you as you speed across the map but will only last a couple of seconds when held down. To help you cross large expanses without dying or just to confuse your enemy during combat you can also dodge roll, making you almost un-hittable while in the action but makes it easy for the enemy to predict where you will end up for a finishing shotgun blast while you recover. Jumping in the game is an interesting point to take note of as well as while jumping you won’t be able to fire any of your weapons, something that does take some time to get used to. It is a little bit of a weird design decision that they’ve said was there for balance reasons, but they are currently working on reverting that decision to allow for jumping and shooting.

The games biggest feature and one that has a very good possibility of being expanded upon in the future is the amount of different game modes it has and while most of the game modes aren’t entirely unique, they are made unique via map design that shakes things up a bit. While there is your standard capture the flag mode, albeit underwater, there is also an alternative mode with 2 flags in the centre of the map surrounded by water and you have to board floating rubber ducks, successfully grab one of the flags and make it back safely to your base to score a point creating extremely tense moments as you try to hide on your rubber duck with the flag as you pass the enemies base hoping not to get detected. All the usual game modes that you expect from the shooter genre are available including team death match, free for all, king of the hill, capture and hold and capture the flag. There are a couple of unique game modes as well, namely this freezer map that has you trying to melt an ice cube in the middle of the map, dropping down a level and then trying to set your frozen dinosaur free. Unfortunately though, this is probably the worst mode in the game with the objectives almost pulling players apart to prevent conflict but the rest of the modes are pretty good with 10 different modes available to play, on 10 different maps. All the game modes are balanced around a 5v5 format which may seem small but on a majority of the maps especially ones like Kitchen Run and Toybox war you wouldn’t really want more players however it would have been nice to some larger maps and modes that allowed for say 10v10 games. They are currently looking into increasing player caps but significant changes may need to be made so that the game is still balanced.

Plastic Warfares art and sounds are fantastic with the environments being made up of various kids’ toys and other colourful props making the game extremely vibrant. Each level is incredibly unique too with very little to no asset re-use that makes each map exciting to play on and explore. From traveling on a moving train trying to capture points or traversing an underwater bridge in capture the flag, the game isn’t afraid to go a little crazy with their environment designs either. Looking outside of the playable area really shows the scale at which the toy soldiers are at compared to the “real world”, with a fish tank turning into a battlefield with a massive lounge room just outside. As for the games soundtrack it’s super up beat and extremely catchy, finding myself humming or tapping along with the music that just puts you in a good mood. It even includes remixes of happy birthday and jingle bells that will get stuck in your head. Some of the sounds for the weapons though could do with some work, specifically the sniper rifle, not so much the actual shooting of the weapon but being hit by it. You only really get a red flash instead of any audio ques that feels vacant when you silently die from a sniper half way across the room. The shotgun also lacks that powerful bang sound when firing, sounding more like it is an air powered shotgun or something of the sort. Hitting enemies with any of the weapons could have done with some sort of audio feedback as well to go along with the visual red x that pops up to make the gunplay just a little more satisfying.

Other features of the game include a server browser to find populated servers rather than relying on the games matchmaking system. You can also party up with friends so that you’re all guaranteed to play in the same game rather than trying to time when you all hit the join button, hoping to all get in the same game let alone the same team. There’s also a short storybook style tutorial to teach you all the mechanics and controls of the game most of which are re-bindable. Being a game developed for multiple platforms you have gamepad support, although why you would use one for a shooter I’m not quite sure. VOIP is also available but honestly with the game type not being super competitive it is very rare that you will ever use it. 

Altogether The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare is just a really good time that can really put you in a good mood with its upbeat aesthetic. The various maps and game modes provide an excellent amount of content and variety that the game doesn’t get too repetitive. The gunplay is a little lackluster but provided the party game type feel that Plastic Warfare exudes the gunplay didn’t need to be fantastic. If you’re looking for a good time with friends or just a relaxed and upbeat third person shooter taking place in the tiny world of toy soldiers then The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare is definitely worth a look.

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for The Mean Green: Plastic Warfare. The game officially released on the 9^th of December for Steam and is currently available for $9.89 or you regional equivalent till the 16^th of December before reverting to its standard price of $14.99. The game will also be releasing on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at a later date. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links above. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you guys next time.

Player Preview - Duelyst

Title: Duelyst
Developer: Counterplay Games
Status: Open Beta

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1N6zmM1
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1MZKyvO

 

 

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the multiplayer turn based strategy game, Duelyst, developed by Counterplay Games, a small start-up studio consisting of a couple of industry veterans. Duelyst has you playing as a commander, able to summon powerful monsters and conjure devastating spells as you try to defeat your opponent on the battlefield.

The game plays out on quite a small playing field being a 9x5 grid starting with only 2 units in play, the 2 opposing teams’ commanders with 25 point health pools each that when depleted will have that commander lose the game. There are also these 3 floating mana orbs that can be captured to give you extra mana to use for a turn. The game borrows a couple of mechanics from Hearthstone as Duelyst is a card based game including its mana system were you start with 1 mana to use a turn, then 2, then 3 and so on. The first cards you draw can also be mulliganed for another so as not to end up with a hand full of 7 cost minions. During your turn you’ll be able to move all your minions already on the field up to 2 spaces horizontally or vertically but only one space diagonally making positioning and placement of units extremely important. On top of that any minion that you try to spawn onto the battlefield can only spawn adjacent to one of your other minions with a valid strategy being to overwhelm your enemies commander and not allow them to spawn in any minions.

Each minion in the game has an attack value and a health value and when in combat the enemy gets a chance to counter attack so you have to weigh up each available attacking option to get the most out of your minions. Some of your minions will also have an additional ability or passive to take advantage of with things like provoke that essentially taunts all other enemy minions around it, disabling there movement until the minion is killed or rush that allows a minion to avoid summoning sickness, able to attack on the round it spawns. There’s a bunch more of these abilities as well as quite a few minion specific bonuses like spawning a 1/1 minion at the start of your turn or friendly minions summoned next to this minion gain 1/1 to their attack and health. There’s quite a lot to consider especially once you start adding in spell cards that are usually cheap on their mana costs but still extremely powerful completely changing the tide of battle. For example being able to attack with a minion twice in one turn at a 0 mana cost or giving a minion +3 attack for 3 mana. Finally there are artifacts that can only be equipped by your commander that can be extremely beneficial however they are fragile and can only withstand 3 attacks before breaking. Numerous artifacts can be equipped at the same time and can provide the commander with +4 attack or the ability to deal 1 damage to the enemy commander for every spell you play. To balance all these cards out you are only allowed to have 3 copies of the same card in your deck, preventing any kind of ridiculous plays likes a +26 attack commander that can 1 shot an opposing commander.

The cards that are available to you in your hand aren’t set in stone with the game allowing you to mulligan 1 card each turn which can be useful in getting rid of cards that are high mana cost and replacing them with maybe a better option. It’s best to this at the start of your turn as you may get a card you really want to use. At the end of your turn you will also draw 2 new cards into your hand providing fast games with lots of action. Both of these mechanics work well in never really leaving you with zero options for a turn, almost always able to get something out on the battlefield.

As you’ve probably noticed there a multiple different factions available to play in Duelyst, 6 to be exact, each with their own unique minions, spells, artifacts and style of play. Some opt for overwhelming your opponent with weak minions, while other rely on faction specific mechanics like Zeal, giving minions significant bonuses when near their commander. Finding one that suits your play style shouldn’t be too hard and trying them all out is incentivized through daily quests like win 4 games with ta certain faction. While each faction does have its own unique cards there are also shared common cards that can fill out your decks. Constructing your own faction deck will have you selecting 40 cards, playing for the first time though it’s probably better to just use the random decks as they will be somewhat balanced around the cards you have available and allow you to learn the game without being too overwhelmed. Once you do get some more cards you will be able to create decks that focus on particular play strategies like buff decks, Death watch decks and so on, very similar in how you can build hearthstone decks.

The main way of obtaining new cards to use in constructing custom decks is by using the games in-game currency of gold to purchase spirit orbs, basically a card booster pack containing 5 random cards, one of which is guaranteed to be a rare or better. These spirit orbs cost 100 gold each with you earning around 20 gold for winning a game plus extra gold from daily quests you complete. As you would expect, being a free to play game you can also purchase these Spirit Orbs with real world currency with one spirit orb costing you around $1.50 or your regional equivalent.

Duelyst has multiple game modes with the main ranked competitive mode being a seasonal ranked ladder that resets after each month. The ranking system works almost identically to Hearthstones with lower level wins gaining you a rank but the higher you go the more wins you will need to secure. Rewards are given out at the end of each month for ranking milestones that consist of 4 brand new cards added to the game plus gold and spirit to craft cards you don’t already have. Other game modes include the gauntlet, basically the Arena in Hearthstone where you choose 1 card out of 3 possibilities until you have your 40 card deck. This game mode is only available once every now and then though purely due to the games current player base and server stability but it will eventually become a permanent feature of the game, possibly even in the next couple of days. There is also a single player mode were you play both sides of the battlefield providing a place to learn mechanics freely. Lastly there is the training grounds that starts off with you learning the basics of the game through a tutorial but later introduces various amounts of challenges and situations that you will have to overcome, rewarding you with gold for each completion. The challenges are actually really well made and can take quite a while to figure out and there are plenty of them to complete if that’s your thing.

Other features of the game include a small amount of statistics showing various lifetime achievements in the game like amount of ranked wins, Gauntlet wins and longest win streak. You also have your current ranked season progress and most played faction displayed here. In the near future a normal or casual game mode will also be added to the game so you don’t always have to play in ranked matchmaking if you’re maybe trying out a new deck and don’t want to lose ranking.

Altogether Duelyst is a really cool tactical game that allows for quick pick-up and play sessions much similar to Hearthstones pick up and playability. The games combination of both the collectible card game and turn based strategy genre provide for more strategical gameplay, weighing up both what plays you have available in your hand and what you can do positionally on the board. If you’re looking for a more involved experience than say hearthstone were you not just thinking about the cards, then Duelyst is definitely worth a look. If you’re more of a Turn based strategy kind of person then Duelyst is still worth checking out but it doesn’t really excel at that part of the game.

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Duelytst. The game is currently in open beta for PC and mac, and will eventually be coming to iOS and Android devices at a later date. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links below. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you guys next time.