by And today I presnt to you, Guns of–HOLY CRAP I’M DROWNING IN ADS
Guns of Icarus is a good idea that just isn’t any good. It falls prey to lofty ambitions, a far too-strong emphasis on micro-transactions, and a far too-small player base to support it. So, you know, basically nine tenths of the multiplayer games that have come out in the last 15 years. There are only two good things I can say about this game and they are strong “goods.” First, it’s probably the best (if not the only) steampunk airship multiplayer game out there, so if that’s your thing this is your bag. Second, it does mood and visuals decently well to the point where during a few moments it actually felt like I was on a steampunk airship, in the rain, in the middle of the war, being shot at. It was pretty cool.
Here’s the bad though, and it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. 1. Gameplay is incredibly simplistic and limited to your standard multiplayer game modes. Capture the XYZ, kill the XYZ etc. If you’re an engineer, you hit stationary parts of the ship with blunt objects (or spray if you have an extinguisher). Not that hard. If you’re a gunner, you point and click at mobile enemy ships while using a gun. Also, not that hard. If you’re the pilot–well, I actually have no idea. I never piloted. However, judging by the simple X and Y plane movements our ship was doing, I’m guessing–still, not that hard.
So problem 1 wouldn’t be all that bad because it feels exciting while you’re doing it. The issues, are problems 2 and 3. So moving on, 2. Too much to do, too little people to do it. While there certainly are still people playing this game (about 100 or so when I logged on) there’s still far too few people. For instance–in order to have a realistic gunship fight, you need multiple boats. In my opinion, you need a bare minimum of 3 for each side. Each boat needs 4 people. This means that in order to have 1 decent game, you need a minimum 24 people, all locked loaded and ready to go at any given time. 100 people “logged in” suddenly sounds like a lot less, especially considering that half of them are on menus, customizing their character or ship or have just fallen asleep at their keyboard.
Add to that, that the games take an atrocious amount of time to set up, map vote, wait for everyone to prepare, load, wait for everyone else to load then play out the game which (true to the nature of steampunk) slowly chugs along for about 15-30 minutes, depending on the match. If you actually want to get into a decently populated server, you have to be patient. It took me 20 minutes just to even start playing. However, that’s just to play a normal game. There’s also missions, campaigns and territory battles that are all supposed to be going on at the same time as well. With 5 factions. All fighting at once. Hooowwww…?
As you can see above, there’s really only 2 factions. Not because the other factions aren’t interesting, but because it’s incredibly rare for any online multiplayer game to support more than 2 factions, let alone 5! Heck, just use America’s political system as the prime example of factional capability! People want to either be first place or oppose first place–entertaining the concept that there’s somehow going to be a 5-faction struggle on a map is a lofty dream indeed. I think the only way it could work is if the map reset every month or something, and there were incentives for switching sides… but even then I’m not sure if it would work and as it stands, there’s actually penalties for switching sides.
3. Micro-transactions. This one’s no surprise, but it’s the final nail in the coffin that makes this game only accessible to those with a lot of time and a disposable income and who really, really want their own steampunk airship and this is the only seller on the market to give them that dream. What I don’t understand is that this is not a free game. I don’t know how much it was back when it was released (it’s only $5 now) but you still have to buy the game to try it out. Then you have to buy coins for outfits. You have to buy expansion missions. You have to buy gear. Why? It feels like the devs are caught in a web of indecision. It’s not free enough to be a “free multiplayer game,” so you block the entry point to your game via the price tag. At the same time, it’s not a “buy once game” because of the need to constantly purchase in-game assets.
Altogether, the way the game is set up just ruins it. There’s a lot of cool things going on with it, but it isn’t focused at all and is heavily driven by a messy set of clans, PvP and territory wars. Is it too much to ask for a drop-in-drop-out PvP air-battle game? Why did it need to be so complicated? It’s too bad, but I have to put this in Tier 3. I’m not even sure I’d recommend it to any steampunk fans–I would want to spare them from this money and time-waster.
