Yeti's Online Review: AirMech

Welcome again in year 2013! How was your New Year's Eve? :D I hope you were enjoying it as much as I did :) So here we go with the first post in the year 2013 :D

Have you ever wanted to commander an mech? One of those enormous robots, probably armed to the teeth with all kinds of weapons of mass destruction? Recently, I came by an game, which allowed me to do so. It's  the open beta of AirMech, brought to us by Carbon Games.

This game is an online only title. Mostly because of it's genre: it's a Massive Online Battle Arena. Or, as most people prefer, MOBA for short. Yes, I know, I haven't seen an Sci-Fi MOBA myself. But there always has to be a first time. So, after installing it on Steam (mostly because the premium content was discounted on the main page, but that will be later), and updating the game, I could start playing almost at once. 

CUSTOMIZATION AND PRE-GAME.

Before we start, I need to write a tiny bit of info. The game is not a Steam-exclusive title. It is also available as an standalone client available for download at the Carbon Games website , and, what was a large surprise: as an chrome app. Which theoretically means that you can play it on any operating system that has access to Google Chrome An added bonus to the latter is the ability to unlock a very funny Chrome skin for one of your mechs.

Now an quick scan to see the champions/characters/or in this case: mech classes to be available  We have a rather small selection of SEVEN mech types to choose. 

A rather small choice, when we compare to the 100+ champions to pick from League Of Legends or DOTA 2, but remember: not everyone likes fantasy. That, however is not the end of available customization. To understand what I mean, we need to quickly overview the gameplay twists compared to other, more cliche MOBA games. The objective in most games is simple: take out the enemies HQ while not letting them do the same to you. The major twist is that you can't do it alone. More: you won't handle the enemy even if you go with your whole team into the fray. You need to additionally produce some units of your own, and transport them to the battlefield (every mech can carry an set number of units, depending on the size of the unit)

The units types available is not set in stone, you can use the in-game store to gain the ability to build other types of units. Most of the options are variations of the early available units, so you can handle well by using the units available to you at the start. Or you can use the other options to adjust the units to be more appropriate to your playstyle. I have not seen any units that can be called overpowered/underpowered. And that is a large plus to this game. With an amount of unit types being more than 50, you can have a largely customized force on the battlefield. And even more, some of the units are blasting fun (yup, I meant the creeper :D )

GAMEPLAY

Okay, enough with the preparations, let's go to action! We have three types of matches available: Survival, Normal Match and Capture the Flag. The first one is an classic, not in this genre, but in general: 9 rounds of increasingly tougher opponents attack your base, and you need to stand firm against the onslaught.  It can be played both Solo, and in CO-OP mode with up to four players. Even through most games with this type of gameplay are easy, you can't say so in AirMech. It's an real slaughter, and requires loads of skills and cooperation from the team to succeed. Otherwise... well, you can always try :) The normal match is the classic one from the genre: two teams, two bases, last base standing shows which team wins. The major difference between AirMech and other MOBA's is the ability to capture bases on the map. These bases act as spawn points for your units and constantly generated "creep" units, that just go forward towards to enemy base, trying to tear it apart. Also, the match is divided into a few segments, that are depended on the time that has passed. Each time a phase changes, the strength of creeps, or your AirMech increases. After an insane amount of time passes, the match goes to overtime, and the teams main bases start to take damage depending on the amount of bases the enemy controls. So there is no way for a match to take forever, which is GREAT. Same thing as above, you can play 1vs1, 2vs2, both with or without other players (but I have to warn you, the AI seems to be in VERY EARLY BETA, it's not even trying to be challenge).  About CTF.... Each base has a "flag". You need to fly to the opponents base, catch it, and bring it back to your HQ WHILE YOUR FLAG IS STILL THERE. It's an quite awesome mode, but a little too fast-paced  especially when you see how fast you can go in this game :X

Now, going to the gameplay itself: it's really action-packed, and most of the time feels more like an online shooter, with a peculiar perspective. You can all see it down below, a recorded randomly played match.

As you can probably see on the movie above, not everything is perfect. The AI sometimes acts in totally random order, or stops moving right beside your defensive turrets. Other than that, the game suffers from random lag spikes and FPS drops. Yup, I play on a low-end PC, but the same problem can be seen on my friends Intel i5 and a brand new graphic card, so these are definitely not our fault. It's all because it's still an beta.

Even through, it's still more than playable. Also it's quite the opposite of other MOBA games. There is a larger focus on strategic thinking and making long term plans. But you also need reflexes and skills gained from playing shooters, be it FPS, TPS, or anything else. You don't have to be that dexterous to play DOTA 2 or League of Legends.

So tl;dr:

• if other MOBA games are too slow for you: play AirMech
• if you are a mech freak: play it
• if you watched too much Transformers in your childhood: give it a shot
• if you love to compete with other people: go for it
• if you are not afraid of being a guinea pig: just do it
• in case off frequent internet downtimes: avoid it
• you prefer playing vs. AI? then you should go play anything else (even Minesweeper is now better)