petak, 17. kolovoza 2012.

Trying to Survive in Warface

Unlike some free shooters, Crytek’s game isn’t all about player versus player arena combat. Those modes are present, but Warface also features co-operative missions presented sort of like daily quests in an MMO. When you log in, a new mission will appear and will be rated as supremely difficult. If you’re able to put together a five person group that can clear it on the higher difficulty setting, you’re awarded with bonuses. But if you’re intimidated by the challenge, you can wait a day and the mission will be bumped down to a normal difficulty, and a new mission will appear for more advanced players to try out. By cycling content like this, Crytek hopes to keep people interested in logging in.

Before deploying Warface in territories outside of Russia, Crytek needs to figure out a payment system that fits with each region. This is a microtransaction-driven game, after all, and Crytek wants to ensure it’s not the type of game where you can just pay a lot of money and instantly be able to obliterate everyone.

The unlockable items appear to affect battle quite a bit, as you can pick up gloves that boost recoil speed, grenades that knock back, and a large variety of weapons. Like in Crysis, some of the gun customization items can be swapped around during play, letting you add and remove silencers from pistols and switch around scopes on assault rifles.

It’s not all about items, though. If you can’t shoot accurately, you’re not going to live for very long in the co-operative mode. I played a Medic for a mission string, and had to first advance through enemy territory to a waiting helicopter for extraction alongside my five-person team, and in then defend territory against waves of enemies in the second half. Doing so successfully involved switching to my shotgun when enemies got too close and lining up pistol shots to pick off enemies firing bullets and rockets at our group from a distance.

It also meant I had to keep a close eye on my group’s health, because I could heal and revive. Healing in this version of Warface required me to actually go up right next to my teammates and click and hold mouse 1 to activate healing; I couldn’t just drop a health pack on the ground and keep fighting while it healed everything in range. This made healing extremely risky, as it forced me to cross in front of enemy fire frequently. It placed more emphasis on the need to make fast, important decisions. Do I run across a lane of enemy fire to heal my sniper teammate, or do I use my pistol to headshot a few hostiles first to lessen the chances I’ll take damage, but increase the chances the sniper might die? Thankfully I could also heal myself, but I didn’t want to risk getting killed, as I was the only one with defibrillator, which is used to revive.

During fights, some enemies simply charged right at our group, some hung back and took up hiding spots behind cover, and some used shields to run up and knock us down. Enemy behavior like that of the shield enemies is meant to encourage cooperation. If I’m on the ground after getting knocked over by a shield bash, my teammate should ideally run up beside the enemy and not have to worry about the shield deflecting his bullets. In general the action was fast, fun, and by the mission’s end I wanted to play another round.

After a mission’s over in-game credits are awarded and everyone’s performance is fed into leaderboard that’s refreshed every day. Special coin bonuses are awarded if you manage to rank near the top which can then be used to pick up otherwise inaccessible items and weapons, yet another way Crytek hopes to keep players logging in on a daily basis.

There’s no set date for launch or open beta testing in North America, but according to Crytek it’ll likely be sometime this fall.


Source : ign[dot]com

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