Shootmania: Storm Review

Inviting advertisement on Steam: “FPS from the creators of Trackmania!”

Um, okay.

Honestly, I don’t know what sets Trackmania apart from shooters. Maybe it’s because it’s not a shooter. “A racing game from the creators of Quake!” – now that would be a joke. Huh? Huh?

Anyway, jokes aside, we have the release of Shootmania Storm, the promised savior of competitive FPS and just a great online game from Ubisoft. Some time ago, I got to play the beta version of the project, let’s see what has changed since then.

First impression – nothing has changed, except this time you have to pay for the game and there are fewer people on the servers. The funniest thing is that my old statistics turned out to be alive. For the first 10 minutes, the client even displayed unfiltered, outdated information straight from the summer of 2012. It turned out great – I was helped to establish that in a year of various testing plus two days since the release of SM: Storm, there were a whole 100 new players from my region. It was almost four hundred, now it’s five hundred and something. That’s probably progress.

After 28 minutes of sluggish gameplay on the only live, but still half-empty German server, a strategic decision was made to re-enter “Shootmania” closer to peak hours.

But before that, everything that could be adjusted had to be thoroughly adjusted. First and foremost – figure out the mouse somehow. Even copy-pasting beta-review, in fact, it’s still the same as it was then.

At eight o’clock in Moscow, I can’t find a server for FFA. Among the popular entertainment options at this hour, you can try three game modes in SM Storm – tournament (which needs to be explained separately, I’ll try to do it later), “Battle Royale,” and some unclear team-based either capture point or just junkyard modes.

The closest in spirit to FFA turned out to be “Battle Royale.” Everyone for themselves and against everyone else, and so on and so forth. I have one problem with the Royal mode – I honestly can’t be bothered to wait until the round is over. When you survive until the very end of another attempt, everything is great and cool. But if it so happens that you were killed first or second among the 32 people on the server, you have to wait a few more minutes for the others to figure out who’s in charge.

In the next round, maybe you’ll be killed third, and you’ll have to wait ten seconds less. Or you don’t have to wait at all, it’s just better to find a server with a more fun mod. After all, we have a shooter-constructor! Well, either it will be in six months or whenever the modders spread out and various invented/restored modes flourish.

For now, let’s switch to team battles.

Where it’s already more fun, but the rules will break your leg. In forty minutes, vaguely imagining what exactly needs to be done on the map, I ran back and forth; towards the end, it dawned on me – that’s why these control points are constantly being repainted!

Oh, right, in general, all control points change their owners from one team to another every n seconds. It is very possible that I am not right now, and the map is played completely differently, but it seems that the teams need to insist on something like 100% when the columns are lit in enemy color, and drive away the enemy from the same columns when they are lit in their own color. Maybe it’s also necessary for Our team to stand near all the columns on the map at the same time.

Honestly, I have no idea what I was doing during the Battle mode, but there was a respawn every three seconds, which was incredibly pleasing after Royal. At least I shot this time and even found a point where they give you a railgun.

The points are such two by two meter squares (well, roughly) on the ground, on which you can’t jump, and which in one way or another affect everything. They can give a railgun, they can heal. Probably, they can do something else, especially if you mess with some mod, but I haven’t come across anything else.

I didn’t want to play in the tournament mode myself, to be honest, but during the beta tournaments, you could more or less understand the next set of rules. In general, the fight is between three-on-three teams, but there is always a one-on-three war on the field. The catch is: this one has a railgun in his hands plus a lot of lives, and the three enemies have a standard gun and one hypothetical unit of health. One must defeat three or capture the checkpoint. The three must defeat one or prevent the capture of the checkpoint. That’s how it goes.

This happiness is probably fun to play, especially when the tank with a railgun is you, but watching these monotonous rounds is not very exciting. Especially considering that the graphics in SM: Storm are frankly boring.

And, you know, here’s the thing. On one hand, Shootmania is not at all like Tribes or Counter-Strike, meaning it’s not extremely crazy and/or highly tactical shooter. It’s not very large-scale either, (= not Battlefield with lasers). And it doesn’t have a fun class-based mode like Team Fortress 2.

So, if you like something more team-oriented, you have better options. For example, the same one. Natural Selection 2, in which at first you also don’t understand anything, but you want to figure it out.

On the other hand, Shootmania, in its current form, is not an individual FPS in the hardcore spirit of Quake and Unreal. It’s actually quite boring, and the fact that SM:S doesn’t even try to deal with it doesn’t add any points to the game.

Well, yes, Shootmania: Storm is very unique, and we still have yet to see what can be done with the editor. It would be great if it takes off in a year.