Yingpei Games, formerly known as Epic Games China, plans to release a free-to-play version of Gears of War for PC later this year. OK, the team doesn’t describe it that way (they actually avoided referring to Gears of War at all during their presentation to IGN), but the studio’s new game, Mercenary Ops, so blatantly borrows from Epic’s biggest shooter franchise that I’d sound foolish not to describe it as such. And so what if they do? If you’re going to make a cover-based third-person shooter, you’d be a fool not to learn from the best. PC players haven’t ever grabbed onto Gears in the same way as 360 owners, but with Epic’s engine and mechanics powering a free-to-play title, that could change with this rather generically named title.
The full list of features Mercenary Ops borrows from Gears of War is pretty exhaustive. Mercenary Ops apes active reload; pressing a button at just the right time to give your bullets extra power and reloads a tiny bit faster. You can roll and melee, with animations overtly similar to Gears. When someone is hit enough they go down, offering opponents a chance to execute them and allies a chance to bring them back. You can blind fire around cover, and important weapons are placed around the environment, making teams fight over them for superiority. A few minutes with Mercenary Ops really is enough to make you wonder why they aren’t just changing it to be a Gears of War Free-to-Play.
While mechanically similar in its gameplay, Mercenary Ops does differentiate itself a bit in other ways. For starters it has no single player campaign. Instead, you join in battles with up to 16 others, playing in classic modes like capture the flag, deathmatch and team deathmatch. For those who aren’t into going head –to-head, Mercenary Ops also has cooperative modes, including a survival mode called Invasion and Assault Mode, wherein teams take down AI-controlled enemies and a boss.
The free-to-play angle also sets Mercenary Ops apart, since it means a different form of monetization and promotion to keep you playing. Mercenary Ops’ weapons are customizable at 8 points, giving you a chance to trade out things like your muzzle, magazine stock and more. You can only ever have two primary weapons at a time, and, since each weapon’s weight affects your character’s overall weight, movement speed is a constant concern. While they haven’t detailed too much about what will be purchasable, the team has stated that will be earnable. Taking down bosses in co-op will also yield loot, and the plan is to have regularly updated quests to earn extra experience and in-game currency.
For the many things it takes from Gears, Mercenary Ops would be better if it improved its visuals a bit and made its kills a bit more visceral. When you stomp a player, fill them full of bullets or blow them apart with a grenade in Gears you feel a sense of power. The weapons you’re using feel meaty; your melee weapons are deadly. Mercenary Ops’ kills are comparatively peaceful, with no blood or really palpable sense that you’re punishing your enemies.
Mercenary Ops is slated to release this summer, but this release window has only been confirmed for North America. Despite any short comings, a free-to-play game that operates in the same engine and uses the same core mechanics as Gears of Wars sounds pretty alright to me. If you’re going to use mechanics from a shooter for your own cover-based game, you could do far worse than Gears of War.
Source : http://www.ign.com
No comments:
Post a Comment