[h1]Overview[/h1]
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[*]RTS with MOBA and CTF elements
[*]Has singleplayer but no campaign
[*]Has multiplayer but no players to play with
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[h1]Gameplay ★★☆☆☆[/h1]
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[*]Perhaps the only noteworthy thing this game tries to do, is to bring some of the innovation of MOBAs back to its parent genre, the RTS.
[*]MOBAs ditched base building and focused on hero units. You get your base already built from the start, and units (minions) just stream out of your base for free. There are no hero units in Arena Wars 2, but you do get the rest.
[*]There are turrets in each lane to guard each player's base, just like a MOBA.
[*]Your base consists of a factory (called Headquarters) and a flag platform (called Launchpad) for playing CTF.
[*]The Headquarters spawns your units and also heals if you send them back to it. If enemies step inside, they will take constant damage until they die. Sounds just like the spawn platform in MOBAs. And did I mention that it is invulnerable?
[*]The Launchpad is where you will try to defend and prevent the enemy from taking the flag (called Module). If you successfully retrieve 3 modules back to your Launchpad, your rocket will fire off and nuke the enemy and you win.
[*]There are no infantry or barracks. All units in this game are vehicles (tanks and mechs).
[*]There are no power plant, refinery or silos. The only resource in this game is player level, which determines the max amount of money you have, as well as upgrade points to upgrade your units.
[*]You gain XP by killing enemies or destroying XP camps littered across the map.
[*]Money comes easy — your wallet is already full from the beginning. You spend money to build units, and when they die, you get it back in full. When you level up and your wallet gets bigger, the extra space gets filled up with cash automatically.
[*]It's really just about budget management and buying the right thing for the right situation.
[*]As the all-seeing player with the bird's eye view, you get 2 items (read: Summoner Spells) that were pre-selected by you before the game begins. Item choices include haste, slow, heal, shield, and a bunch of RTS superweapons albeit smaller in scale. Such items are single-use only, but you can go around destroying camps on the map to collect more.
[*]As such, these camps provide points of contention for the players to skirmish and fight for control.
[*]There are also major camps called Power Cores each belonging to a player (but located far away from their base) that when destroyed will unleash a devastating shockwave around their Launchpad and destroy any of their units nearby. This is a mechanic to discourage full-on camping beside the flag.
[*]There is no singleplayer campaign, no story, no factions. You just pick a map and a bot difficulty, and off you go. There's not even a tutorial! You have to click the 'Help' button and read the short guide.
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[h1]Art & Graphics ★★★☆☆[/h1]
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[*]The designs of the units and structures follow a uniform style, and they do look pretty good design-wise. The details are nice and quite detailed. It is a pity that there are no multiple factions and hence the art is too little to create any sense of variety.
[*]Graphics output of the Delta game engine matches the quality of StarCraft 2. This is by no means great by today's standards, but comparing 2 games released within the same timeframe, it holds up well against the reigning king of RTS in this regard.
[*]Animations are passable and I'm just glad to see no drifty movement. The walk cycles of the mechs do look convincing enough like they are really walking on the terrain.
[*]Effects like explosions and electric bolts use generic sprites and are not very interesting.
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[h1]Music & Sounds ★★☆☆☆[/h1]
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[*]Generic electronic music with a minor epic feel.
[*] Passable voice lines. Soundbites from the units are processed to sound like voice comms. Announcer's voice has a slight echo treatment. The devs did the work, but it's nothing outstanding.
[*]Lack of death lines and sounds of machines falling apart is really obvious; there's just explosions.
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[h1]Plot & Characters ☆☆☆☆☆ 0/5[/h1]
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[*]Absolutely nothing.
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[h1]Controls & Interface ☆☆☆☆☆ 0/5[/h1]
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[*]The controls are remappable but opens up in notepad for you to edit. That's just lazy. And it didn't work anyway when I tried creating my own control scheme. Heck, even some of its own hotkeys don't work.
[*]*Attack-Move hotkey doesn't work.*
[*]*Waypoint button doesn’t work.*
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[h1]Verdict [/h1]
[quote]A CTF RTS that tries to simplify the RTS macro by borrowing features from MOBA might sound like an interesting concept on paper. But in practice, MOBA is actually a poor fit for enhancing the idea of a CTF RTS. What RTS brings to CTF is base building — constructing an ironclad defense to guard the flag like never before seen. Removing the core of RTS while still forcing it to be played like one only ends up with a game that has no soul.[/quote]
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