Final Cut: Toradora! Part 1 DVD
Keep It or Trade It?: Madden NFL 11 (PS3)
Keep It or Trade It?: Trinity Universe (PS3)
Read or Recycle? Gantz Vol. 1
Read or Recycle? Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit Vol. 1
WorldShift is a science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Crytek Black Sea.
The Story
One Thousand years in the future, in the aftermath of a massive asteroid collision, Earth’s survivors splintered – many now live in futuristic mega-cities while others represent the tribal remnants of civilization’s past. A third faction, an alien race, also stakes its claim in this bold new universe. Playing as Humans, Tribes, or Alien Cult, your daily battles and missions for precious resources will require a shift in thinking and a shift in strategy to prevail in this World Shift!
Features
- Quick action with Easy to learn RTS
- Emphasis on co-op play (boss raids similar to Multiplayer RPG)
- Fast and Furious multiplayer
- Thousands of items and powerful relics to collect
- Use items and relics to build your own tactics
- Random Maps for infinite exploration
- Epic dangerous missions with great rewards
- 3 playable races
The Review
So how does the actual game shape up?
All players are required to sign up for a GameSpy ID and must login online to play in any mode. This serves as DRM and as a way to track the progress of all players. After logging in you can check your place on the leader boards, check on your “friends” status (I put that in quotes as friends are people you see AFK, but that’s for another post), chat, and set up your single or multiplayer experience.
Who's getting beat in this shot. Fucking Tree!
Graphics
The graphics were very well done with a lot of attention to detail. There are individual shadows for all units and the surrounding landscape. I especially like the effects of rain and lighting. They didn’t feel like after thoughts. They helped draw me in to the story.
But no game is perfect. The scenery (especially trees) block your view of combat on several maps. This causes a lot of problems when trying to select units. Figuring out where everyone is, and especially trying to select an individual enemy. It was a bit of an endeavour and an annoyance that cost me the mission more than once.
Soundtrack
I really enjoyed the soundtrack. I found myself just listening to the music sometimes. The soundtrack comes with the Collectors Edition of the game. It is not available separately at this time.
The layout for the icons does well for giving maximum viewing room.
Controls
The controls were simpler than I realized. All controls work with keyboard short cuts and a right click of the mouse. The simpler controls were great when it came to choosing powers and spells of the Major Units. All powers/spells are listed by icon at the bottom left of the screen for all Major Units in the selected group. This is a great improvement over other RTS’s as most require you to select units individually to be able to activate their powers.
The simpler controls were frustrating when keyboard short cuts that I have found to be standard in other games do not exist in this one. The command I missed most was the ability to choose a location for the troops to march to and have them automatically fight all enemies encountered on the way. Without this you either have to specifically choose an enemy to attack, which is difficult to do sometimes on the smaller enemy units, or you have to click on the ground near the enemies, wait for your troops to arrange themselves around that point and then they will automatically attack hostiles within a certain radius. This being the worst way to set up your troops as they will be taking a lot of damage while they align themselves.
Did you think this was Easy? Then you'll love Worldshift.
Difficulty Settings
The lack of multiple difficulty levels made this the single hardest RTS I have ever played. I feel the best way to describe the difficulty is imagine if the Fire Emblem Series went MMO. This makes learning the strategy of the game a “sink or swim” endeavour. Those that would be categorized as “casual gamers” will find the game overly frustrating. The average gamer will still find the game difficult but depending on your tenacity you may plow through it in a long trial and error routine (This unfortunately is how I have had to play the game). The “hard Core” gamer, the type who play Halo on Legendary with all skulls on, the type who dare to play a South Korean at Starcraft will find the single player campaign too easy, but should have a blast with multiplayer.
Single Player Campaign /Story Mode
This follows the typical fantasy story of a prophecy that when fulfilled will bring peace to the world. This is presented to you through scenarios and dialogue as you take control of one of the 3 player races. Not much beyond a standard fantasy/Chosen-One storyline.
The story mode also acts a tutorial of sorts for the multiplayer experience. If you are having trouble here you will not last in Multiplayer mode.
What is Spanish for 'Ow, Quit it, My Ass Hurts'
Multiplayer
Being as I had trouble handling the AI in story mode, death match was not my best performance. Might as well have had a child go a round with Mike Tyson.
Co-op would have gone smoother if I could have found someone who spoke English. Maybe it was just my luck but all the players I found were not native English speakers. This made coordination in Co-op difficult.
Inventory and Powerups
On all maps (single and mulitplayer) you will find treasures/items that improve the abilities of different troops. Each Item is specific to one of the 3 races and you will have no way of knowing what will be found so you may find yourself wasting time opening a chest for items that don’t help the race you are currently playing. The items can be saved for later games so not all is lost. And whenever a chest is opened there is a small chance of finding xenolite, which is used to purchase powers/spells for the various races. To really have a chance at multiplayer, or to ease your single player trials, you need to do whatever you can to collect xenolite.
Final Verdict
Stunningly beautiful and hard as hell. Worldshift is best left to the “Hard Core” crowd at least until an easy difficulty can be chosen. And preferably after some of the more standard shortcut commands are introduced.
| Graphics: |   |
| Story: | |
| Gameplay: | |
| Balance: | |
| Intangibles: | |
| Overall: | |
