Alien Arena: Warriors of Mars is like an inferior version of Unreal Tournament. I’d rather play Unreal Tournament, but Alien Arena is not a bad compromise. Alien Arena has some flaws, but the core gameplay is smooth and well executed. Unfortunately, there are too few players at the moment for me to make a proper assessment of the game.
Positive:
- The graphics are clearly not spectacular for today’s standards, but they are decent. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the details included. At the very least, the graphics did not distract me from the gameplay.
- Very smooth/fluid aiming and movement for a first-person shooter. No complaints on this front.
- Quite a variety of of weapons (10 in total I believe), some of which even have an alternative fire.
- As far as I can tell, there are three game modes: deathmatch, capture the flag, and tactical bloodbath. I would have liked an in game tutorial to better understand how tactical bloodbath works. Deathmatch and capture the flag were straight forward.
Negative:
- The biggest issue at the moment is that there are no players. It’s very difficult to play/judge an online FPS if you’re only playing against bots. I will revisit this game after some time, so I can make a reassessment.
- Maps need a better design. I’ve tried a few capture the flag maps and I’ve noticed that there is usually only one path you can take to capture the flag. I find that this makes flag attacking/defending very linear and predictable. More routes would make the game feel more dynamic. Also it would be nice if some larger maps were made. All the maps I played on felt incredibly small for the player limit.
- There are plenty of small things that can be improved:
1. I wish there was some kind of indicator to show when the round will end. I don’t know if it’s on a timer or if the win condition is reaching a certain score. In deathmatch you get an announcement with 3 frags are left, but I’d like to know the score limit before that.
2. Spawn locations need to be better defined. It only happened once, but I spawned right next the enemy flag. This is unacceptable. The developer found and fixed the spawn bug quickly. Props to you.
3. The map vote at the end of a match can be made more user friendly. For example, you can show an image of each map, so the player has a better idea of what he’s voting for.
4. Achievements only unlock when I close the game. This issue can probably be easily fixed.
- This game doesn’t add anything new. Like I said before, I’d rather play Unreal Tournament. I want Aliena Arena to have its own identity, something that makes it stand out from other games (besides it being about aliens). There is definitely room for improvement.
Conclusion:
Despite my criticisms, I quite like Alien Arena. The FPS gameplay is solid, but there are bits and pieces that must be upgraded to improve the overall quality of the game. I will revisit this game when the player base has grown a little. I don’t want to give a definitive recommendation just yet, but I’m currently leaning in favour of recommending this game.
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This review was submitted for Gaming Until End, through the generous contribution of HellCow.
