Shattered Horizon Review

So, in the not so distant and quite plausible future, Mankind have been taking advantage of the Moon's natural resources, mining minerals, searching for the existence of the Clangers and hosting I'm a Lunar Celebrity Beam Me Up Scotty! When suddenly the Moon explodes due to a catastrophic disaster in one of the mining facilities, scattering millions of tonnes of debris into space, most of which settle in orbit around Earth. A conflict opens up between two factions, the MMC and the ISA which brings us dear players into the picture by choosing which side we wish to play as in this 32 player, Multiplayer only, Zero Gravity FPS title from the fine chaps at the Futuremark Game Studios.

If you have read my previous previews of the games here and here then you should be familiar with the concepts of the game, however if you have not then I shall provide a brief summary.

Shattered Horizon is the first of what I hope to be many titles to appear out of the doors of FGS, utilising a modified engine which powered 3DMark Vantage so you can expect outstanding visual effects bursting onto your screen in this game. It's worth noting while not having a ridiculous set of minimum requirements to run this game, it does however require DirectX 10 or higher which simply means if you're still on XP then I'm afraid this game is a no go area for you.

As I mentioned before the game is a FPS title set in space, this means you have complete freedom of movement along any axis you so wish to zoom along. Now what Futuremark have managed to create via I can only assume is some form of witch craft is a completely intuitive method of controlling your character in this zero gravity environment. The vast majority of FPS gamers will instantly pick up the basics of movement, they will quickly adapt to the momentum of your character after shooting themselves off a rock into space and in no time at all they will be swooping and looping and doing other manoeuvres that end in "ooping" to evade their adversaries in order to get themselves into that optimal position to strike.

The game has multiple game modes for you to tackle in all of its zero gravity glory, however if this seems too daunting for you novices then the team have kindly provided beginner servers where damage is disabled so you may freely roam the maps, learn the terrain (or lack thereof in some cases) and grasp the basics of zero g movement without the fear of being killed. Additionally there will be servers which have restrictions on player ranking enabled, this prevents veterans of the game entering and dominating a beginner based server so Futuremark really have thought about making this more accessible for the newcomer. Also there are eight maps in total to battle across, each of them is varied and visually stunning.

Upon firing the game up you notice that everything is nice and pretty and shiny making you go "Oooh Ahhh, That's Nice", you'll also be like this throughout the game as there's lots of views in the game that make you just stop and admire the lighting or the artwork or a combination of both, which will inevitably lead you to being shot. Lighting plays a huge part in this game, the glow from your thrusters, the flash from your rifle, even the glow from your rifle display, the natural light casting shadows over the environment, it's all been lovingly designed to be pretty yet an inherent game mechanic. You see, these pretty glowing lights are your visual markers to enemy movements, that muzzle flash on the horizon, the trail from your thruster exhausts shooting across the map, all of these things will give your position away to the enemy.

However you may activate silent running mode, this will shut down all your suit's systems bar life support while you slowly drift through space as you sneakily try and flank the enemy without giving away any visual clues to your whereabouts, while this sounds like an appealing tactic, you must remember that you will have no external audio, remember you're in space and no one can hear you scream therefore your suit simulates the sounds of the environment, also no radar or thrusters to help movement so it's down to your eyes to spot something worthwhile attacking before rebooting the system to blast back into combat. Additionally, when you're spotted by your opponents, your position then becomes visible on every member of that teams' radar, pop silent running and you disappear quicker than being shot with Barry Scott's Cillit Bang.

My only reservation would be that while it's a nice system to evade people, I don't think it's enough to shake the hardcore players from launching a volley of bullets with pinpoint accuracy into your helmet causing you to depressurise which inevitably leads to your death.

In response to the community over concerns of just having one weapon, Futuremark have addressed this by removing the standard rifle and replacing them with a veritable banquet of firearms (hence the DLC title of Firearms Pack) which would even make Rambo salivate at the mouth. To begin with for melee purposes, every astronaut is armed with a Mining pick which can swiftly dispatch any foe when you get in range, also every astronaut has access to a pistol as their secondary weapon. While fairly accurate the pistol does not pack that much of a punch behind it, that being said it is a reliable fall back weapon when things are tight.

Then we have a selectable range of primary weapons. A short range, rapid firing Sub-Machine gun which is light weight and won't affect your movement too much. A high damage, short range auto Shotgun. A brand new Assault Rifle with red dot scope, pretty much the bread and butter of most players with it's relatively balanced stats. A high capacity but low damage Heavy Machine gun, used more as a means of suppression rather than actual assault. Finally a huge damage and insanely accurate Railgun, however pick your shots carefully as the minuscule capacity and slow rate of fire will leave you vulnerable. All of the new weapons are now iron sight capable so that will help with aiming issues.

With the removal of your original rifle, the team had to introduce a new way of dispensing your grenades. They did this by creating a grenade launching pistol while creating an additional three non-lethal grenades to use, to go along side your ICE, EMP and MPR grenades you get to use Flare grenades for a blindingly bright light, perfect to disguising your own pack trails. A Sonar grenade which will actively mark enemy players on your teams' radar and finally a Decoy grenade to confuse the enemy radar.

These new grenades used inconjunction with the new weapons opens up a new plethora of tactical decisions, do you lay down a base of suppressive fire with heavy machine guns while using flares to blind the enemy while you fly out of the bloom with a swift strike using SMG's and Shotguns? Or do you launch a volley of Sonar and Decoy on one flank while your team silent run in the darkness on the opposite flank in an attempt to disrupt enemy defences? No matter what you decision, Futuremark have definitely improved the core gameplay with the Firearms DLC.

The game very kindly tracks your own stats and generates a performance page for yourself so you may keep tabs of how you are progressing online which is a nice touch but simply boils down to pure e-peen waving between the cream of the crop, though the main plus point for me is that they stuck to using dedicated servers.

Oh Lord have mercy, how I loathed Infinity Ward after they announced the decision to move away from dedicated servers for PC play for Modern Warfare 2, in favour of some hideous match making system. So yes, you can happily play on dedicated servers feeling relieved that little Billy McNoobsworth wont rage quit the game and halt the flow of combat as he was the sessions host after being shot in the face for the 17th time in a row and making everyone call him every name under the sun while the game searches for a new host.

The game is at an awesome price point on Steam and it would be rude not to play this. Highly recommended and will no doubt give you a lot of enjoyment.