- Joined
- Apr 19, 2012
- Messages
- 12,062 (2.75/day)
- Location
- Gypsyland, UK
| System Name | HP Omen 17 |
|---|---|
| Processor | i7 7700HQ |
| Memory | 16GB 2400Mhz DDR4 |
| Video Card(s) | GTX 1060 |
| Storage | Samsung SM961 256GB + HGST 1TB |
| Display(s) | 1080p IPS G-SYNC 75Hz |
| Audio Device(s) | Bang & Olufsen |
| Power Supply | 230W |
| Mouse | Roccat Kone XTD+ |
| Software | Win 10 Pro |
Introduction
Running with Rifles is an isometric team-based shooter, developed and published by Modulaatio Studios. It is made using a custom engine, but is based on the OGRE graphics library. The game is currently running its course through Steam Early Access, but is set to be a full 1.0 version early this year. I played the game throughout version 0.9x and beyond, as it reminded me of the classic Cannon Fodder game. While it’s not a total spiritual successor, it does have some small and vague similarities. The easiest possible way to describe the game is like Battlefield but top down. There aren’t quite as many weapon accessories load out options, but the experience system and weapon unlocks, as well as objective point play is quite similar. The game features a full length campaign, and fully integrated multiplayer Co-Op, PvE, PvPvE and PvP. It also has Steam Workshop support.
Storyline
There isn’t really a storyline, even in the campaign mode. On face value, the campaign mode is there to get you to understand the concept of the game, understand weapons and roles, as well as learning how to get your ass handed to you by the enemy AI. The whole way through the campaign, the objective is merely to take over the entire map, and drive the two enemy factions back. The campaign in RWR is similar to the campaign in a game like Battlefield, relatively pointless, because all the hours of gameplay are in the multiplayer.
Gameplay
The concept of the general gameplay is exceedingly simplistic, but refreshingly so. The general idea of most matches, both PvE and PvP is to capture various points on the map, until one team obtains total control of all points on the map. You capture points by obliterating the enemy repeatedly at said point, until eventually your troops outnumber them severely, and they’re respawn is forced to an alternative area they control. Once you decimated your enemy, there’s a ten second countdown that happens which displays how far away you are from total control of an area. During this point the enemy could overrun you and stop you from taking full control, although generally teams have enormous amounts of troops capturing an objective.
There are occasions when such a thing doesn’t happen, and that’s where the stealth options come in. Against AI, the only way to successfully remain stealthy is to use silenced weapons. These include the MP5SD, silenced pistols, and, at later ranks, the silenced sniper rifle. Provided you are not in an enemy’s line of sight, you can shoot (or stab!) the soldier without any other enemies coming to investigate the noise, or their comrades surprising and untimely death. This allows teams to form squads of insurgents equipped with silenced weapons and C4 and other utilities. You can head in with you “Navy-Seal” type squad, sneak around an enemy position, eliminate hostiles, and destroy fuel tanks, idle vehicles, radio towers, and raid enemy stashes. If your squad is really the bee’s bollocks, you can even capture points at the heart of the enemy territory if they have no soldiers around defending it. Each time I’ve played there has only ever been a single squad of stealth players, usually me and around five or six others. We creep around the edges of the map, lay down a flair to call in reinforcements in the event we die, build sandbag cover spots in case things get hairy, and start an incursion where the enemy isn’t paying attention. It’s also worth noting you get more XP for stealth kills as opposed to standard kills.
Provided you’re on allied territory, a player with enough RP can call in for reinforcements, vehicle drops, as well as multiple air strikes and artillery. This can make the difference between a successful invasion, and a last ditch defence against dozens of enemy soldiers. Most servers award RP for kills and completing objectives, and you also gain RP over time while disconnected from a server. Both RP and XP are persistent, but this persistence is entirely server based. If you leave a server and join a new fresh one, you start at lowest rank with no XP or RP. Every 500 or 1000 RP your soldier gains a rank, often unlocking new weapons from the armoury. At much higher ranks, the required RP for ranking up severely increases however. Higher ranks not only unlock weapons, but they also increase the amount of AI troops you can have in your squad. These AI troops will automatically join your squad, and can be moved to various objectives to aid you in your conquest. The only way they can be removed is by lowering your maximum squad size to 0 with your PGDWN button. RP is generally spent on items, which can only be purchased from the armoury, and the more utility an item has, the more it costs. For example, a standard AK47 costs 2 RP, in comparison to a sniper rifle which costs 40, or a Kevlar vest costing 40, or a mortar, costing 200. Each time you die, you lose xp, and you lose RP to automatically equip you with the items you had equipped when you died.
There are various rare items (largely pointless fud) and weapons, which cost considerable RP, however if you find these on the battlefield and return to an armoury, you can sell them for RP so you can buy what you want. Rare weapons are usually stolen from enemy stashes, or taken from fallen enemies, and are usually quite powerful. Weapon power is defined by their killshot percentages. Every weapon has a percentage stat, which means every single bullet that hits a target has a percentage chance of killing an enemy. That means with a weapon with 5%, there is a 5% chance every bullet will kill the target. With sniper rifles the percentage climbs insanely high to 90%+, and assault rifles hovering around 50%. That means you can either get very lucky shooting a machine gun, or very unlucky getting shot at by a pistol! Kevlar does not reduce damage per-ce, but knocks you down on the first “kill-shot”, then you get up. On the second “kill-shot” you are knocked down, and must be revive by a player with a medkit. The third and final “kill-shot” will kill you. Vehicle weapons and rocket launchers, as well as grenades have a 100% kill-shot rating, as does running over an enemy with a truck, tank or even a rubber boat at the right speeds.
Crouching, walking and going prone increase your weapon shooting accuracy, while running drastically reduces it to unusable levels. Each of these stances reduces your speed, but increase the rate at which your accuracy stabilises. The game also employs an excellent cover system, where certain levels are at different heights, providing cover over hills, as well as the height of buildings that you can climb on. Cover is an absolutely necessary thing. Without it you’re destined to die repeatedly, and the key thing to learn in the whole game is how best to use cover and move between it, as well as using your enemy’s choice of cover as a weakness when flanking.
It sounds like an awful lot to take in, but once you’re in game and playing, aware of the few simple mechanics, and used to the concept of cover and grasped the inner workings of weapon accuracy, it becomes a cakewalk. Then you start to focus on your squad operations within the map, and the game comes into its addictive prime.
Controls
It’s actually really nice and simple for the most part, but there are a few curveballs thrown at you. Basic movement is ‘W’A’S’D’ keys, Left Click is shoot or use item, Right Click issues commands if you’re in a squad, and Space is your climb key. There’s also CTRL for crouching, SHIFT walks, and C is to go prone. I like the choice of C, most games opt for Z instead, but it’s much harder to successfully hit in comparison. G is for grenades if you have them equipped, and V is for knife. If you’re wearing armour and get knocked down twice, you can crawl around and cry for a medic. In the event there is nobody around, instead of waiting 2 minutes for you character to automatically die, you can hold V for about 5 seconds to commit suicide. In addition to all these basic commands, TAB is your map key as opposed to M.
Provided you’re in allied territory, or at least have enough presence in an area, you can hit the H key to call in for a number of support options, including cover, artillery rounds, vehicles as well as reinforcements. In deep enemy territory, this radio option won’t work.
Video Settings
It’s not the most graphically complicated game ever devised, although oddly there are two areas in which you have to adjust video settings. The first is before the game is launched, you can choose the baseline of video settings (and thank god there’s a VSync option). It gives you the option of monitors in the event you have multiple, which is a nice touch, and all there is here is your standard AA. Within the game, you can start toying with in game asset graphical settings, which I think is probably where most of the grunt comes from. I get the distinct impression the initial settings menu can simply be maxed out, and the in-game options are where you’d adjust based on performance. There’s a reasonable amount of specifics, but obviously a game like this isn’t going to have multi-sampling or options quite advanced to the end of modern AAA gaming.
System Performance
CPU: i5 4670 (Stock)
GPU: MSI GTX 970 (Stock)
RAM: 16GB 2133mhz
Storage: WD 1TB 7200RPM
Display: 2560 x 1440
It seemed to me that the game was largely CPU limited. The GPU never ran at full throttle, but then the processor never seemed to get beyond ~30% usage. I’m running under the assumption that this game can only use a single core in its current state, and you occasionally see where it chokes. I found that most of the time it was running beyond a hundred, if not two hundred FPS during 80% of gameplay. However, I did notice once I started hitting areas with around thirty to forty soldiers on screen, it would start to choke. The choking wasn’t coming from the GPU however, as it never got close to 90% usage, but the processor was still bobbing along at 30% usage. I could be wrong, but it appears its CPU limited, and also limited to a single core. In the event you get caught in a town with forty or more enemies, and you start calling in artillery, you might see even an i7 start to drop frames below the 60FPS mark.
1440p
1080p
Recommended Hardware
I don’t see this game requiring a dedicated card above the $100 mark. As a matter of fact I think you could probably max this game out on a top end i3 with the most modern iGPU. People running new Pentiums and a modern low end GPU could probably net similar results and users with APU’s could probably do the same, with the sacrifice of base IPC power, all achieving a solid 60FPS on 1080p. The issues seem to arise on even the best of systems when things get hectic, so it’s something owners of all kinds of hardware may have to periodically deal with. Certainly, X99 users and people with i7’s won’t see much activity across 90% of their cores.
Conclusion
So far I’m ten hours into my playtime with RWR, and despite the fact that for the last week I keep feeling that the game is kind of “empty” feeling, I kept going back to play it for a few hours every single night of the week. I can’t explain it without you having played it. It doesn’t have a great deal of weapon content or massive difference in gameplay in every mission, but it’s still fun. It’s a very simple formula, and an even simpler implementation of the whole concept, and yet it’s extremely enjoyable and rather addictive. I think thanks to the persistent experience and ranking on public servers, as well as the progressive weapon unlocks that every player gets access to, it makes you come back for more and work towards something. There’s a varying amount of playstyles and roles you can take on, and once you’ve found a nice server with people you enjoy playing with, the game really comes into its element.
The enemy AI is actually quite fantastic, and in some cases does a rather good job of flushing you out. Obviously it has to act somewhat dumb when you’re trying out the stealth possibilities in the game, but when you’re caught, and a horde of enemies come to your position to deal with the threat, they don’t just run in one by one to get mowed down, and they certainly don’t miss very easily either. The AI seems to actually flank your position, flush you out with grenades, and deal with whatever tools you try to use to survive. They’re also pretty darn good at dealing with vehicles, which while devastating, are reasonably easy to deal with for both teams. Nothing in the game seems particularly overpowered in that respect. Stealth players, Assault players, Vehicle oriented player, as well as Snipers, all feel extremely well balanced. You’re rewarded well for taking the more complex approach to situations, but equally punished for dying stupidly on a frequent basis.
On the whole it’s got a great formula, a pretty ace player base, and a very low entry requirement in terms of both system requirements, as well as player skill. At the same time, there is an ungodly amount of improvement you as a player can make through the ranks, and the learning curve for the whole thing seems largely perfect. It’s not Cannon Fodder, nor is it what I expected when I loaded the game and saw its voxel style, but it took me by surprise, and has become one of my favourite games to play.
Running with Rifles is available on Steam Early Access for £10.99/$14.99
