Player Preview - Defect

Title: Defect
Developer: Three Phase Interactive
Status: Demo

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1OfbNS9
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1DogGTf
Kick-Starter: http://kck.st/1GtwfsK

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the space combat action game, Defect, the first PC and Mac title developed by the 3 man team over at Three Phase Interactive. You and your team are working to get new and improved spaceships out into the galaxy were you will act as designer, builder and captain to a crew of recently released prisoners.

The recurring mechanic in Defect has your crew of prisoners defecting and mutinying you of your own ship after the completion of every mission. That’s not the worst part either, that same ship and crew will be making a return to mess with you and your brand new ship. This has you designing ships at the start of every mission with the reminder that this ship will inevitably be stolen and used against you so designing a weakness that you can take advantage of isn’t the worst idea and is even were the game gets its name, Defect. You aren’t meant to build the best ship possible, you’re meant to build a ship that will succeed in its mission at the bare minimum requirement.

Mutiny!!!

The missions that you will be sent on will include general combat missions, races, mini-boss and boss fights. For each mission you will be given a short debriefing that will give you some idea as to how you want to build your ship to tackle the situation weather you build your ship for agility and speed, defence and weaponry or something in-between. Your first ship build will most likely fail especially in the later missions so you will have to go back to the drawing board and tinker with a couple of  the components to get it just right.

Building your ship is pretty intuitive with the ship building system that defect has implemented. As long as every piece of your ship is connected to the core, even if it’s via a chain of other pieces it will work and then you can manipulate every piece through scale and rotation to create something that is somewhat unique. There are some limited resources that you have to adhere to when building your ship however including power and crew members. Each part of the ship will have a certain power and crew member usage associated with it so you have to build within those restraints. As you complete each mission you will unlock more and more pieces to help you build better ships but again just be careful not to make something too powerful or you may come to regret it.

Building Ships Made Easy

The controls in the game are fairly simple with W activating your thrusters while “a” and “d” rotate your ship. If you’re struggling to manoeuvre your ship there are components to help increase its manoeuvrability including wings and rudders. For combat most weapons are forward facing unless otherwise rotated during the building phase so you will have to line up the front of your ship with the enemy most of the time. The weapons will automatically fire once you’re within range but you can take direct control of weapons via the direct control mechanic that not only works for all weapons but also engines, shields and wings to give those components a boost in effectiveness. Taking direct control of a weapon allows you to aim and fire where ever and whenever you want at least for the weapons that are able to rotate. The bonus given when taking direct control of one of your ships components is nothing to laugh at either and will undoubtedly be needed to be taken full advantage off for the later missions. 

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Ship

During combat as you would expect your ship will take damage with each component on the ship having its own health bar. While you can survive without your shields or armour it’s the more important components like your engines and crew quarters that will severely decrease your ability to fight if destroyed. There is a repair mechanic to the game though to help you get back to some sort of combat effectiveness by using scrap collected from ships you have destroyed to do some quick patch work. The combat as a whole though is a little simplistic with enemy ships just flying directly at you to get off their forward facing weapons and you’re doing basically the same thing. Without the third dimension it is hard to make the combat more interesting but luckily Defect doesn’t focus only on combat based missions, providing races, boss fights, base assaults and more.

Incoming Fire

Other features of the game include unique music to play too corresponding to what type of crew quarters you use for instance the circular crew quarters provides an eary alien kind of tune. A feature planned for release is the ability to take on other players creations in the challenge mode unfortunately this will only be an AI controlled ship but nonetheless it will be interesting to see other player’s creations in combat.

Altogether Defect is a fun combination of ship customization and space combat with the somewhat unique feature of your ship being stolen at the end of each mission leading to instant regret when it warps in with its new crew. The various mission type’s keeps the game interesting as the combat alone is basically a jousting match with the two ships flying into each other unloading all the weapons they have available. The ship building works great and is super easy to use, the system also provides progression to bigger, better ships so that you start of small with limited resources but by the end of the game you will be able to create massive ships with numerous weapons, shields, special equipment and more. Defect is definitely more of a creative focused space sim requiring you to build a new ship for every mission so if you’re the creative type and like space combat, then you should definitely check out Defect. If you’re looking for a more combat focused experience however, Defect may not be that game for you. There is a demo available to download so if you’re not sure you can try it out.

Space Station

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Defect, the game has been green lit on Steam and is currently seeking funding via Kick-starter which it is currently at around 30 thousand of its 40 thousand goal. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links below. Thanks for watching, I’ll see you guys next time.

Player Preview - The Red Solstice

Title: The Red Solstice

Developer: Iron Ward

Officially Released July 9th

Official Website: http://bit.ly/1NTy3Rq
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1HRTceI

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the Action RPG, The Red Solstice, the first title developed by the team at Iron Ward. After a devastating virus wipes out the population on Earth it’s your mission to stop the outbreak from spreading any further on Mars, humanities last hope. To top it all off one of the worst weather storms in Mars history is occurring known as the red solstice.

For each mission you will take control of a 4 man squad with control primarily being given over the commander of the squad. The controls of the game are what you would expect: right click to move, left click to attack and hotkeys for abilities. To take control of the other squad members you will have to enter a slowed down tactical mode were you can move them individually and use their unique abilities. Admittedly not being able to take direct control of the other units and their abilities outside of the tactical mode is a little strange but it does put an emphasis on the commander of your squad and the times that you would want to take direct control you would probably already be in tactical mode. Inventory management and healing with the medic however would have been nice to do outside of tactical mode.

Tactical Mode

 Speaking of classes, there are 8 classes available including Assault, Heavy Support, Medic, Recon and more. For the single player missions you will be locked into that squad’s specific classes but you will be able to switch out their weapons, abilities and upgrade their attributes before you head into a mission. For multiplayer missions though you will be able to choose whatever class you want but first you will have to unlock them all with experience with the more niche classes like recon being unlocked later on down the track. As with the single player mission you will be able to set your soldier up with guns, a primary and a secondary, an ability set and passive boosters. The same kind of experience unlocks occur here too in what could be compared to how killing floor does their progression system with more power and better abilities unlocking the further you progress a class allowing you to take on some of the harder difficulty levels.

Classes

The multiplayer mode has you squad searching for an anomaly located somewhere on the map that you will eventually find out to be a boss creature you have to kill. Heading straight to the anomaly isn’t the best idea though as you’ll need to gain a few levels beforehand thus unlocking your abilities to stand any chance of defeating it also you will need to hunt for valuable supplies like med kits, explosives and ammunition from inside the buildings. As with most wave based games the wave’s start off fairly easy and slowly get harder and harder so picking the right time to attack the anomaly boss is essential so as not to get overrun. Picking a good team competition before jumping into the mission is extremely important too due to some of the classes’ special abilities for instance the medic can obviously heal but it can also generate med kits, anti-venom, bandages and stimulants that you and your teammates can take advantage of. Similarly the heavy support can generate ammunition which is extremely important as you’re likely to run out before the mission is over and you don’t really want to be running around inside of buildings searching for it. The final boss fight is a little underwhelming unfortunately basically being a bullet sponge, this is one area of the multiplayer that could have been improved upon and would have made the experience so much better but as it is now all you do is click on the boss and dodge its attacks.

Multiplayer

The gameplay difference from single player to multiplayer is fairly small but they do make the two modes feel significantly different. Single player missions requires a lot more focus on squad management and strategy specifically setting up a defensive perimeter while taking full advantage of the slowed down tactical mode. Multiplayer however loses some of that strategic element with no tactical mode nor the same kind of level design as single player that allows for more defensive set-ups. Instead multiplayer is more about continually moving so as not to get overrun by the horde and if you get split up somewhere on the way well, that’s pretty much game over for you until you can respawn again.

Surrounded!!

There is one final game mode called survival however this is basically just the multiplayer mode but for single player, so you take control of a squad of 4 on one of the multiplayer maps regaining the access to tactical mode. However due to the level design and the way multiplayer is set-up, Survival mode is a strange combination that doesn’t really work all that well and is definitely the weakest of the 3 game modes. If you wanted to play single player then the single player campaign is definitely the way to go.

Other features of the game include a stat sheet that keeps track of your multiplayer contributions like kills, deaths, and damage dealt. For multiplayer there are numerous options that you can enable and disable for an altered experience including fast mode were the time between waves will be sped up, Swarm mode were more zombies are spawned etc etc. There are also 6 different maps to play on with 4 difficulty levels to test your team against.

Altogether The Red Solstice provides a great strategic campaign with maps that are well designed and fun to play with an interesting story going on in the background. The multiplayer changes it up with a faster, more chaotic play style that relies heavily on good teamwork and communication to succeed. The game feels like a more squad focused version of StarCraft’s: Wings of Liberty campaign in terms of the actual combat so if you liked that kind of gameplay then The Red Solstice may be for you. Otherwise if you’re like squad based strategy games or you like horde based gameplay, The Red Solstice is worth a look. 

Bombs Away!

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for The Red Solstice, the game released on the 9^th of July and is currently available to purchase on Steam. 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 - Poly Bridge

Title: Poly Bridge

Developer: Dry Cactus

Status: Early Access

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1LGXGqa

Steam Page:  http://bit.ly/1RUMUMC

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the physics based bridge building game, Poly Bridge, where the aim is to get vehicles safely across your bridges and structures.

The game is a pretty chilled out experience, there are no timers so you can build at your own speed and the games music provides for a very mellow atmosphere. The tools you are given to build your bridge will depend on what is available for each mission with some materials being unavailable in some circumstances to make it a little bit more difficult. The constant will always be road pieces as they are the only element of the bridge that vehicles will be able to drive on. Obviously just building a road over a ravine won’t be enough to support itself let alone a vehicle traveling across it so you have a bunch of support materials that you can use to help that. Wood is your most basic support material being cheap but not all that strong and is best used to create this kind of criss-cross pattern that is almost a requirement for every bridge that you will create. Steel supports will help support bridges with heavier loads travelling across them or help support landing impact from some of the stunt jump levels. Cable is the final form of support for overhanging structures that have no available base support options.

A big aspect of many of the games levels is creating splits in the bridge to allow boats to travel underneath. You can mechanize the split with pistons that will raise or lower the split joint in your bridge to allow both land and sea vehicles to travel over and under your bridge. Some of the later levels though this mechanic somewhat breaks. The mission will ask for a split in the bridge to allow for the boat crossing but you can just build your bridge up and over the boats crossing which is not only easier to construct but also a lot cheaper allowing you stay way under budget. This could be enforced however with the addition of a road height limit that prevents you building over the obstacle rather than actually building the split. The game already has levels that restricts the amount of road tiles available to you so it could maybe even take advantage of that system in these kinds of circumstances.

The jumping levels I found in Poly Bridge to be the most entertaining and required a little more thought to be put in to support the on landing impact. The monster Truck level in particular had me stuck for a while and not the bad kind of stuck were you feel you have exhausted all options, more like being stuck but still having a bunch of different elements you can still play around with. Eventually I managed to get the supports somewhat working and by somewhat I mean that bridge was definitely a one use only structure that fell into the water just behind the truck, but it got the job done.

Apart from the predetermined 60+ levels that you can play through the campaign or main game, Poly Bridge also has Steam Workshop implemented so you can download and play other players creations or even create your own through the sandbox level editor. If you ever have a moment in the game that you want to save, whether it be funny, ridiculous or plane stupid you can create a short animated GIF straight from the game that you can choose to upload to the games gallery, a place where you can go to watch other players saved GIF’s, or even upload it to social media. While it is a rather odd feature it’s still pretty cool non the less and can help capture some of those really awesome moments in the game.

Other features of the game include a simulation speed slider that allows you speed up or slow down the simulation for better analysis particularly to see what breaks first on your bridge so you can fix it. There is also a stress overlay option that will show you the parts of the bridge taking the most stress colourized from green to red.

Altogether Poly Bridge is a nice relaxing game that although laid back will still require some advanced problem solving to succeed on some levels. The mechanics do become a little repetitive once you’ve played a lot of levels and is one aspect of the game that may struggle on the official level side of things however I imagine that the workshop levels will fill the gap here with more crazy level ideas. If you like physics based puzzle games, Poly Bridge is definitely worth a look and if you ever want to just sit back, relax but still be engaged, Poly Bridge offers that too.

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Poly Bridge, the game is currently available via Steam Early Access. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links below. Thanks for reading, I’ll see you guys next time.