I rush towards the hillside and hide beneath its relative safety, as streams of blue energy bolt across the sky above, crisscrossing like lightning. I move closer to the hillside, glancing to my right as two of my red comrades rush to the hilltop. Within seconds, they flinch and stop moving as a white aura engulfs them and they disappear into streams of light. Behind me, the remains of the red assault prepare for another push. I join them as we storm the hilltop only to be engulfed in a flash of blue. Moments later, white engulfs the hilltop and none of us remain.
Seconds later, we emerge from the red home base and stream towards the enemy towers once more. A bright indicator in my HUD informs me that we are now defending. I rush towards the front lines.
It feels like a science fiction movie, and the first obvious reference is Tron. The potential large scale madness reminds me of a mash up between Laser Tag and Battlefield. Yet this is no ordinary first person shooter. This is Shootmania, and it lives up to its name.
Shootmania
Shootmania is a FPS game that focuses on team play and quick, fast paced action. It has three game modes, Storm, Joust and Elite, with a fourth soon to come. With so much to offer, this is going to be a pretty lengthy article! So get yourself a coffee, baton down the hatches and dive into the realm of Shootmania with me.
Jousting for victory
Joust is a dueling mode, as the name suggests. It is a one-on-one tournament with players trying to maintain a win streak of three points to claim victory on the map. These maps are sometimes fast paced, but can also be very tactical and slow, bringing a different approach to the table that depends on the player’s tactics. My own tactic was to run up close, dodge in and unleash all five of my shots onto a target before fleeing towards the recharge stations scattered across the map.
This mode is a little more newbie friendly, as the recharge points are all clearly labeled with a ‘goal’ floating text, and the simple point is to tag your opponent into oblivion with your weaponry. The recharge point can be a pole, pad or even a doorway, as I found to my great expense in one round…
All of the weapons in the game make an appearance depending on the map, and this can lead to some interesting tactical choices, such as leading your enemy into a zone where you can only use mines and quickly mining the entranceway as they swoop in behind you. I expected the community in the tournament setting to be very elitist, but was surprised to find incredibly good sportsmanship. Several times I saw players calmly sit and wait as their opponent waited out a lag spike before continuing the match.
This was astonishing to witness. In fact I found myself pulled further into the community when I used a lightning platform, and found that several players had no idea what it was. So I called out to them to stop so that I could explain, and my dueling partner granted me a minute to type out an explanation as to what the lightning weapon was for. I have played many FPS games in my time as a gamer, and it has been a very long time since I have seen such sportsmanship in virtual competitive gaming. After each game, players congratulated each other, offered tips and advice and cheered for their favourite character as we duked it out in the various maps.
And what maps they were! They ranged from dark floodlight forestss with underground caves to brightly lit deserts, which reminded me of Trackmania canyons.
While two players fight, everyone else is shown the spectator menu, and is able to watch the action from above and from each player’s perspective. It was very interactive and helped to lessen the wait for my own turn. I found myself on the edge of my seat as I silently urged on my chosen champion.
Elite fighting
I did not get much chance to play this game mode. Unfortunately, I suffered several connection issues and was unable to play many rounds of this game type. Elite mode is a simple concept, two teams fight, with one player at a time becoming the attacker with the lightning rifle while three others are on the defending team, holding the pole with standard weaponry.
The objective is capture the pole three times, and then defend it three times. It seems like a fairly simple objective, but with the lightning bolt wielding attacker able to take around three to four hits from your basic weapon, it is incredibly difficult to defend.
Storming chaos
In Storm mode, each side has to capture the poles, or flags, in the opposing team’s base. It sounds rather simple, but can get very complicated very quickly. The first team to touch the opposing team’s pole is marked as attacking, and then has 15 seconds to capture that pole before moving to the next one. During this phase, the defending team cannot capture any poles, nor can they lower a capture on a pole, resulting in massive battles across single points.
After a successful defense, the defending team becomes the attackers and then have 15 seconds to claim a pole for themselves, or return to defending once again. Confused? I certainly was at first!
Shootmania does not come with a tutorial as of yet, and I learned the rules by asking the in-game community. Players were incredibly helpful and eager to point out what was what, where to go and what I was supposed to be doing for the team, which was a nice change from the often hostile environment of many public FPS games. Never once did the losing team curse out the opposing one, nor cry ‘foul play’ or descend into argument. Instead I was happily surprised to find a very open, warm community that was eager to share how much they were enjoying the game. Greeted with a warm hello, a quick lowdown on the game’s objective and map I was ready to get into the fight.
Beautiful but deadly
Using Nadeo’s latest engine, Shootmania looks incredible on the highest settings. A simple firefight becomes a work of art as red and blue orbs streak through the sky of a green forest and explosions litter the landscape. It very quickly feels immersive, as players move to dodge incoming fire and return with their own.
Gotta go faster!
Players of Quake will be right at home in Shootmania. The pace at times resembles a game of Tribes, with players streaking through the sky and jumping through the beautiful scenery as they fire orbs of pain towards the enemy. Speed plays a huge part in the battle, as you will find yourself jumping, running and weaving to dodge incoming orbs as you fire your own.
Using Trajectory
The weaponry of Shootmania is very simple. You have three weapons, firstly the basic plasma orb that a player throws towards the enemy. The orb also pushes the player back slightly before firing, and it takes time to travel to the target, leaving behind a trail of your team color it as it streaks through the sky. You have four shots, which recharge fairly quickly, and can be fired as you choose. The question is; do you want a quick four bolt barrage, or a single tactical shot?
The second weapon is the mine. It is very situational and can only be triggered through special underground areas or doorways, which allow the weapon to be powered up. You get two mines to lay down and trick your opponent into running into it. I found these incredibly useful as a fallback movement in the Joust game mode.
The third weapon is the lightning rifle. This acts much more like a single shot sniper rifle, but as the name suggests it fires a stream of electricity towards your target. It is also a one hit kill weapon. However to balance this rifle, in the main game mode for Shootmania you can only use the weapon when stood upon a specific charged platform. This renders it very effective for defense but not as useful in some maps for offense. Which brings us to the next point.
Community Maps
If you are familiar with Trackmania you will recall that Nadeo produced a map editor in game which uses preset assets to create maps. With this feature, you can create a map and share it as you please, and players only have to download small configuration files. These track the location of each object in a map, arranging them in place on the player’s computer and allowing you to play the map quickly without having to download huge files. While this might seem like it could hinder creativity, the community of Trackmania has created many stunning and often difficult maps to race upon. The same process has been applied to Shootmania, with players able to create maps in the in-game editor for the community as a whole to use in games.
The potential is immense, the game lends itself to quick movement and momentum, and it is possible that there will be community created game modes such as racing or parkour. It seems like it would lend itself well to a surfing game mode, much like the one in Counter Strike.
Tagging, not Killing
Nadeo have designed a non-violent shooter, and it feels very refreshing to play. As part of their Maniaplanet dream, they have decided to create a shooting game that is not as violent and militaristic as others in the genre, such as Call Of Duty, Counter Strike or Battlefield.
Every player ‘dies’ but they are re-spawned in base as their virtual body is reconstructed. Each player is dressed in an outfit of blue or red, brightly illuminated with lines and a very Tron-Esq style. Nadeo is very eager to distance themselves from the violent side of first person shooters, and it feels like a success. Each player can take two ‘tag’s from the orbs, which could be compared to laser guns from laser tag. On the second tag, a player is transported back to the start leaving a white ghost of light behind as they phase out of existence, only to reappear after a set time on the home base platform.
I enjoyed my brief time in Shootmania. The community was welcoming, the maps were fast-paced and full of action and the gameplay was enjoyable. It was a refreshing change from the normal FPS genre, and the color is what really stood out to me in comparison to the normally dull gray and mud of most modern most FPS maps. I would recommend that you check out the main website.
I will certainly be watching its progress, and I will be interested to see whether Shootmania will make it as a tournament game. I am very eager to see what else Nadeo has to offer for the genre, including future projects such as Questmania.
So what do you think? Will Shootmania steal the show as the next competitive fps game? Have Nadeo created a big hit, or do you feel more at home in the shoes of battlefield? Leave a comment below or on the forums and let us hear from you!
