Toxikk

The Defence
The Prosecution
AMD equivalent
AMD equivalent
The genre of true Arena FPS hard to recreate in this modern day. Many developers seem to be trapped between recreating the mechanics of Arena FPS’s of old without true understanding of how they work and “modernizing” them, both of which drags the games away from what made them fun in the first place. Anyone who has watched a Quake Tournament knows how massively high the skill ceiling is, and it tends to be really hard to recreate that level of mastery required to take one’s place as the best players. Not to mention the fact that doing so may end up being the detriment of the game. High skill ceilings create wide divides between new players and seasoned veterans. This may be alright for a game with a giant name such as quake, but for a small game, it can quickly drain the player population due to new players being turned off by how badly they are being beaten.
However, this isn’t to say that it can’t be done. Can the developer Reakktor, their game Toxikk, and their strange love of k’s capture that perfect blend of twitch reflexes, split-second decision making, and on-the-fly resource management that is the arena FPS? Well, maybe I’m not the /best/ person to judge (pun not intended) on how well it does to recreate the high level play, but I will say that it does indeed feel like it succeeds in bringing us back to the good old times. That is to say it feels like it does so for two of the three maps. Which may sound like I’m harping on the odd man out, but really, it’s more just radically different than the other two. More on that later though. In a way, it feels like they are doing early access right. The game looks and runs beautifully, but the game is currently barebones in terms of content for the time being. However what is there feels finished. The weapons are interesting, the few maps are really nicely designed, the weapons feel right, you move around in a fairly natural fashion and it’s just ridiculously fun to play. At time of writing, there are three very standard game modes: Bloodlust, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Cell. Bloodlust and Team Deathmatch are your standard “kill everyone” and “kill everyone who isn’t on your team”, and have two relatively compact Quake-like maps. However, Capture the Cell is a capture the flag mode that has a single, fairly large map complete with vehicles that couldn’t be more Halo if it tried. If I hadn’t heard of this game and played Capture the Cell and was told it was the next Halo game, I would not be surprised. Well, in fairness, it takes a lot of good influence from Halo, while leaving regenerating shields, dedicated melee and grenade buttons, aim assist and a two weapon limit behind. In short, while the game may currently be lacking in content for the time being, what is there seems to have polished to a mirror shine. I’d say Toxikk is definitely worth keeping an eye on and possibly picking up later on down the line, or better yet, on release once it’s expanded on. At time of writing, the game gotten frequent updates and the developers seem to be involved with the community a fair bit, so I have high hopes that it will eventually evolve into something great.
Posted 15-04-2015, 20:11
It does. But don't worry, it's not Halo. It's actually really good
Posted 15-04-2015, 01:00
That does look like Halo...
Posted 13-04-2015, 23:27
Not my kind of game, not even remotely. But I had a hell of a good time playing it.
Make of that what you will