RATINGS:

Graphics: 8
Gameplay: 8
Sound: 7

Overall: 7.6

The good: Several PvE and PvP game modes, fun and fast-paced gameplay.

The bad: Some occasional visual glitches, no real innovations.

                                                                                                                   

We are excited to be able to finally share our gaming experience we recently had in Warface. This is the newest and simultaneously the first free-to-play game from Crytek, the pretty well-known software company that called into being remarkable titles like Far Cry or Crysis. With Warface, Crytek wants to deliver a state-of-the-art, competitive shooter MMO that is directly playable via browser and therefore extremely accessible. Yes, indeed! That’s what these guys are promising: a modern browser-based competitive massively multiplayer first person shooter game. We thought we should find out together if that’s the truth or just another cheap and soulless MMO of the same sort as many others.

The game is accessible via GFACE, which is the new browser-based gaming platform by Crytek and not a rapper. Imagine a kind of blend of Steam and Facebook for gaming freaks, with the limitation of Warface being the only game available at the moment. Still in its beta, players may already find a passionate community where to make new friends and play together. The account creation once completed successfully, you may download the required file (there are approximately 2 GB of data to download despite the fact of being playable via browser, though) and start playing.

Warface appears as the quite classic class-based first person shooter MMO that has a couple of unique features and its own twists to offer. However, we should stick to the classes first: You may choose between Engineer, Rifleman, Medic and Sniper, the later and Rifleman being the roles available right after having registered to the game. These two are fairly simple to play, allowing players to familiarise themselves with gameplay without being confused by too many mechanics at once.

All classes have a specific feature unique to them as well as their very own weapon type, the Sniper being the only exception. Medics, for example, are equipped with shotguns, able to heal themselves and others and revive their fallen team-mates. Riflemen are the only ones capable of refilling their own and their comrades’ ammo supplies and attack with light machineguns or assault rifles and engineers can repair armour, set up landmines while also having sub-machineguns at their disposal. To make up for lacking comparable helpful tools, Snipers are the only ones that are really effective at long range. Every class presents its own unique style of play and we didn’t expected having so much fun as a Medic, whom we thought to be rather a typical supporter than the ferocious killing machine that he turned out to be with his shotgun in close range.

Levelling up gives access to multiple new pieces of gear and weapons, some of which are purchasable with in-game or premium currency while others are available for crowns, the special currency players are rewarded with for (successfully) doing co-op missions. Warface didn’t seem pay-to-win to us so far, as we couldn’t come across any piece of gear or weapon offered for real money that was particularly unbalanced.

Gameplay in general is very fun and extremely fast-paced. There’s a comprehensive and robust control system offering modern features of every sort, as for example vaults, iron sights, the prone position and so on. The MMO furthermore sports some pretty original features: one the one hand, the assisted climbing. While the game allows you to climb on small crates just by hitting the space bar, higher places are accessible only with a team-mate’s help, who then is able to decide whether to follow you up as well with your help or to just lift you up. Rewarding cooperation and teamwork, this quite neat feature can, however, be sort of annoying as well if team-mates keep ignoring, for example, a lonely sniper who wants to reach a higher place. On the other hand, there the ability to perform slides while running by pressing F, which enables you to pass at full pace underneath low passages, quickly regain cover or commit some quite nice sliding kills.

Warface offers the opportunity to engage in either co-op missions or competitive PvP. The former are levels in arcade style where a team of players faces AI-controlled enemies while trying to complete their mission objectives and safely return to the starting point. They not only offer a nice change from the frantic PvP action, but also earn crowns to buy some fashionable and unique and fashion items in the store.

PvP provides players with all the all-time favourite modes of this genre, like team deathmatch, domination, free-for-all deathmatch, plant the bomb, etc. Having a nice array of modes and maps to choose from, you may additionally customise the match rules to only allow certain weapons or classes, resulting in crazy, always fun matches like a melee-only team deathmatch.
The maps are designed brilliantly, testifying the great effort developers have put into their creation. The interesting environments are full of balconies and passages with several accesses, making it quite difficult to find a safe position to operate from while providing a wide range of different possible approaches and strategies.

Based on the nearly perfectly optimised CryEngine 3, Warframe boosts some really good graphics and smooth animations that may even surprise owners of older systems. This becomes even more obvious in comparison to similar recent first person shooters such as S.K.I.L.L. – Special Force 2. As already mentioned, the design of the maps is very polished and their look is sleek as well, never being uninspired or boring but full of details. A few character animations, the jump for example, occasionally appear a bit stiff and we’ve also noticed a couple of minor visual glitches, like rifle barrels visible through walls, nothing serious, though, that would compromise the experience.

CONCLUSION

Highly accessible and free-to-play, Warface is a very polished MMOFPS you should definitely give a shot if you are a fan of the genre. Considering Crytek being the company behind it, we would perhaps have expected to find some truly innovative features within. However, we were not disappointed by the satisfying gameplay and the fun and fast-paced action this game delivers. As a shooter fan searching for something different from the common or truly original, you should maybe keep looking elsewhere. If not, what are you waiting for?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 24th, 2014 at 6:37 pm and is filed under MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Puedes dejar una respuesta, o un trackback desde tu sitio web.