Gadgetory

hey everyone this is steve from gamers nexus dotnet and today we're reviewing shootmania storm which is nay do and ubisoft's new venture in classic twitch shooting gameplay first off i want to note that I've already uploaded 2 gameplay videos from shootmania so if you're looking for raw footage and commentary while I'm actually playing the game go check those out that are linked in the description below the full review is also link there that is a full written article okay all of this out of the way we need to talk about what shootmania actually is the game has kind of been around for about a year now and beta and alpha phases but it's finally shipped and it's been hitting the news with a couple pretty large tournaments there's actually an alienware at three thousand dollar tournament coming up soon so it's trying to make a splash in eSports but it's not just a competitive game it has very good casual elements as well making for a very fun twitch arena-style shooter that can really be played by anyone so the game fuses the skiing and momentum elements found in tribes or tribes ascend with the twitch shooting and arena format in quake and unreal tournament it's a brilliant mix of speed and precision so honestly I've been a big fan of this since I started playing a couple weeks ago and shootmania really tries to differentiate itself from the classic twitch tutors onra by placing an even heavier emphasis on player skill and and really removing a lot of the balance elements that can happen with for example multiple weapons so you're saying why are you implying that there's only one weapon well that's because there is actually only one weapon at any given time and really only one weapon period there are two others technically but they have very specific conditions that need to be met to use them and I'll discuss that in a moment here's the thing with shootmania it operates very heavily the entire design design of the game is built around the idea of constraining the players so you only have one weapon you have a Limited sprint duration you have two shields it's not a lot of health you know you can only get hit two times before you're out basically and then finally the the map for the free-for-all mode which is sort of the standard mode right now unless you're competitive the map for the free-for-all mode which is called Royal will compress as the gameplay goes on so each new map there's a pole in the middle a player will run and capture that pole that initiates a storm and the storm starts on the outskirts of the level and moves in slowly until eventually a couple minutes later you're stuck with just the central part of that map so it constrains players forces them inward anyone caught the storm is immediately eliminated and then obviously by nature of being forced closer together the players and the outer perimeter who are kind of hanging out and trying to camp will be forced to abandon their sites and and fight each other more directly so this does a lot of things first of all it eliminates camping almost entirely it keeps the game very fast-paced because rounds are pretty strictly limited to only five or so minutes as soon as a player grabs that pole that flag it gives them points so there's incentive to capture it and it starts the storm which then starts forcing players inward and and it starts down a timer so when you're eventually left with just the middle of the map as playable space the rest of it is in the storm just the middle the map the player account is normally reduced around two or three at this point and they just they do can battle each other until finally a victor is declared if there is no Victor then the timer will expire and it will be a draw so so that's really the gist of the constraints that's the game design and even with the weapon we mentioned there's only one weapon even with that one weapon there's one more constraint on top of it being your only active weapon at any time and that is it has limited shots so for the plasma cannon which is our standard standard issue weapon for every character you only get four shots consecutively in rapid succession before it needs to recharge that means each shot needs to methodically placed and really carefully timed because if you miss especially if you rapid-fire all four shots if you miss you're out of luck until basically until it recharges and at that time it's entirely up to you to move your ability to dodge shots in coming from other players and on that note i've been saying in these last two videos i just talked about in the written review I've been saying there are three huge elements to shoot mania one is your ability to aim self-explanatory two is your ability to move around and dodge basically your dexterity also self-explanatory and three is speed and momentum and here's where we start talking about the other game modes first of all a huge aspect of the rewarding elements of shoe mania because it does not reward you with unlockables and level ups and all of that shiny stuff it rather rewards you just by you being better and feeling good about that and it does sound kind of stupid to say it but it's true it is a very rewarding game just to play and that is awesome so as far as speed and momentum ago the game really is all about your other than the shooting the aiming the dodging your ability to move quickly and really navigate the map in a manner that puts you at a constant advantage and the game has a couple of small tweaks I suppose in the way momentum is calculated so there is a curve and it's not just something you can't just like hold down spacebar and instantly be fast there is a trick to it so there's a lot to learn just in that aspect alone there's stuff to learn in the wall jumping the obstacle overcoming the aspect and by the way there's a full game mode for that as we've mentioned and then of course there's a lot to learn just in aiming and in learning when to fire your shots so the game is all about rewarding the player for learning how to play it not necessarily being good like Call of Duty does and that to me is a huge reason that is an appealing game to all audiences including more both the more casual side and the more competitive side who can play the 3 verse 3 elite mode and that's just let's talk briefly about that before we conclude here the game has a couple modes that has royal the free-for-all mode we've talked shown it has an obstacle we've talked about and shown and that's a player made boat by the way as joust which is one versus one duels with other players and that's pretty cool it's a lot of fun it's a completely different health count different way the weapons work it really switches things up then there's elite which is basically a 3 vs 3 one person juggernaut rotation what that means is each team has there's an attachment of defender the attacking team has one player in play so the other two are sitting on the bench that one player is going up against the three defenders who are defending a pole the attacker must either eliminate all three defenders or capture the pole once it is available for capture it's not immediate there's a little bit of strategy to it and all of this noted the elite player as the name implies has a has the hits can rail gun which is a one hit kill in this mode and he also has three shields whereas the defenders will have one shield each and are stuck on the plasma cannon making for a very difficult a really tight competition it comes down to numbers and the defending team's ability to communicate where the attacker is that way they can sort of stick together as soon as you break apart the attacker is at a huge advantage like a ninja in the night or something just going to Sasson ate them one by one so that's the competitive mode and really just to wrap things up here shootmania personally because this is a review i have to give you some opinions here i think it's a fantastic game for twenty bucks all day long buy it i would i would buy it again it does have some bugs Justin like minimizing for example I've had to restart the game a couple times because of minimizing nothing huge they're nothing like actually game breaking our prohibitive that I've experienced and as far as other downsides there really aren't any major ones perhaps the community is a little bit small but still as long as you're playing at a reasonable time at night or afternoon you're going to find a game just fine and if you're trying to play in the middle of the day I'm speaking strictly to North American service here if you're trying to play in the middle of the day well you're going to have a little bit harder time with the a royal and competitive modes but you can drop into player made modes all day long no problem like obstacle will tide you over just fine so the game does have a bit of a following in Europe it's growing in North America and I personally hope to see it grow a lot more i would love to sponsor tournament in the future but we will talk more about that separately go check out the other two videos for gameplay looks just pure gameplay and you go to the description below for links to those linked to the review link to everything you need to know about us and i will see you guys next time peace you