RATING:
Pros: Lots of maps to play through, varied game modes, old retro style (if that’s what you are after).
Cons: Dated graphics, mechanics and modes with no innovation, botters seem pretty common, HackShield.
Graphics: 4
Gameplay: 4
Performance: 6
Overall: 4.5
We recently did a more extensive play through of Piercing Blow from publisher Zepetto, a free to play FPS MMO taking on a more traditional style of gameplay with old school features, elements of customisation and a variety of game modes and maps to play. Playing for some hours we got a grip on the basic mechanics, experienced the different types of game modes and got a general feel of what the game was about.
First and foremost the game installs HackShield without so much as a prompt, anyone unaware is that this third party software is used to monitor your computer to make sure players don’t hack or mod the game it was bundled with. Unfortunately it doesn’t work (see later) as everyone knows and all it does is hinder, but hackers pretty much always stay one step ahead. The bigger issue is that it is a pain in the ass to remove once installed, there’s no uninstall option, no listing in your Control Panel to remove it, and it gets rooted in your system files. As soon as we saw the little HackShield logo pop up we knew we were onto a bad start.
Graphics wise the game looks over ten years old; it’s the same old Asian FPS games we see constantly regurgitated using the same old engines and sources to just reskin and rename again and again and again. Blocky textures, poor effects, bad character design, it looks as you would expect; like the original Counter Strike (released in 1999 if anyone is wondering). There is however an element of nostalgia with these games, which is why they remain ever popular; the old school feeling, mechanics and game modes are exactly what a lot of people are after apparently. The sound effects and music are equally as dated, but either you hate it or accept it as it is (hopefully) meant to be: a retro game.
There are 5 game modes really, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Search & Destroy, and Bomb Planting, which are all your general game modes we’ve seen in every MMOFPS made since the dawn of time. However, there is also "Escape" where one team spawn as Dinosaurs at one end of the map and the other as humans; the idea is that the humans need to reach the other side of the map and, as the name says, escape. This game wasn’t in the list of lobby games, no one was running it, so we hosted our own game to check it out with another player. What a mistake! We started as the Dinosaur and as we only had melee attacks, so trying to get to this other player in a wide open area was... well... impossible. Try to be sneaky and take your time creeping up on them? Well they’d just run straight to the end. Obviously a game for a lot of people, which might be more fun, but as we said; no one plays it.
The Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch are obviously the most popular with dozens of games available and with 47 different maps we have to say that is the best thing about the game, though some maps do seem to come up quite regularly. A major annoyance (that we thankfully realized we could turn off) was the incessant invite spam we got in the lobby to join games, even declining the same people would just keep asking and asking and asking, which either means they’re really rude, or there’s some bot style invite program to try and fill rooms for bots to farm in.
Combat is pretty fast paced as you would expect of an FPS, and we’ll freely admit it isn’t necessarily our forte, but we seemed to hold our own well enough particularly in the Team Deathmatch games. On the one hand we’ll happily admit that we’re not great, and we know some players can pull off absolutely killer shots, but we’ll also say that the frequency that we were headshotted from miles away as soon as someone appeared around a corner there’s definitely some aim-bot style shenanigans going on. This was more obvious in one of the Team games we were playing where when all our team bar one person died we entered spectator mode and you could simply tell by the way the "player" was moving, randomly shooting in the general area of the remaining enemy player (even with tons of cover in between) or the rapid fire, reload, switch weapon twitch they kept doing was suspicious. The crowning achievement was when the "player" made their way to the bomb to defuse it, stood next to it, but was shooting at the walls with only 10 seconds left to defuse and spent too long firing randomly that when it did start disarming it was too late. Boom.
There’s two major annoyances for us with the game and that is the time it takes to complete a game, presumably the default settings, but you end up stuck in the same level for 15mins plus usually, and the gameplay just isn’t that varied to be stuck on the same map for so long. Secondly is that everyone, regardless of level or gear, is thrown together in the same match. Now on its own it’s not that big a deal if players go up against more experienced players, the problem is that experienced players no doubt already have much higher level "Parts", gear that can be places into various slots to increase your defences, accuracy, and all that jazz. So you’re not only out skilled but massively outgeared as well with the lack of matchmaking.
Overall the game wasn’t the worst, it didn’t look great, the mechanics were dated, the game modes were old hat, but providing you play the game with a mind of "this is old school retro FPS" then it’s fine and holds its own if that’s what you like. However, sitting in the "Free to Play MMOFPS" genre it sinks waaaaay down to the bottom end of the list below dozens of far superior and innovative FPS games.
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