The Case

There's a storm coming. A manic, laser filed storm. A storm of shots fired in an eager fugue. A Shootmania Storm. See what I did there? Intense, action packed and dizzyingly fast, battle arenas harken back to the days of the rocket jump from those crazy cheese fiends at Ubisoft. How does it stand up in the days of regenerating health and bacon shields for your favourite SMG?

The Trial

Now, I'd like to start out by saying, right off the bat: I am not a fan of competitive multiplayer. Not one little bit. But, I love this game!

There's something insidiously compelling about it. It seeps into your brain and scratches you behind the cerebellum, whispering 'play me, you know you want to!' until you can't resist. Fire it up, check how many planets you have... Yeah, they give you planets to build your own solar systems and play God with... okay not really, but more on that in a moment. Pick your game mode, and promise yourself just one match. That turns into two, then four, then ten, then it's the following day and a bacon shield for your gun sounds really good right about now. Bacon is tasty.

But what exactly is this game? What's it all about? What's the deep, subtly woven metanarrative? A complex, multi-layered plot covering generations? Because, y'know, it's Ubisoft. They always do that, right? Not this time. Shootmania is all about the gameplay, which is incredibly simple, but not so much that it becomes stale or repetitive - despite the fact that it is, actually, incredibly repetitive. But it's the good kind. A classic example of “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

There are a number of game modes, though they all pretty much play out the same way. The only real differences come in the number of players. There's the obligatory Deathmatch (called Melee in the Shootmania world) and Team Deathmatch, which play out exactly as you'd expect. Though, points are granted per hit, not necessarily by kill. With two shields per character, it can sometimes take more than one hit to score a kill. There doesn't seem to be any clear rule on what constitutes a one-hit kill, as I've hit people in the shin, and they seem them drop dead, and put several shots into someone else’s face and seen them keep going. Maybe I just suck.

A nice variation on deathmatch is the combo mode. A 2v2 variant which requires killing the opposing team within a time limit. Once your duo scores one kill, you have a timer counting down. To win, you have to hunt down and eliminate the other guy or there's a respawn and voila, on you go.

Battle mode is akin to the classic Capture the Flag mode, though there are no flags to capture, but instead massive spires on the opposing team's side of the map. The game starts with a mad dash to reach the mid point, with the team that reaches it first being given a few seconds (usually fifteen) to reach one of the spires and start the attack phase. Upon reaching a spore, you’ll stand around it in close proximity until it's been captured. If you step away, or are eliminated, the timer starts again. If one team doesn't reach a capture point in time, it flips round to the other team. If they don't reach it in time it goes back, and so on until one team has captured all of the other team's spires.

Elite, now that's my personal favourite mode. It's similar to Battle, but plays out in 3v3, with only one member of the attacking team active each turn. The goal here, is to either eliminate all three of the defenders, or to capture the solitary spire. However, the spire can only be captured after surviving for a certain time (usually 45 seconds) and the actual capture takes a lot less time to complete. To offset the inherent unfairness of a 3v1 battle, the attacker is given three shield layers and a laser weapon that guarantees a one hit kill. If it hits. It actually makes things a lot more unbalanced than you may think in certain situations. But in a good way. Skill will immediately, and always, be the deciding factor in an Elite game.

There are, of course, many other game modes available, as there is an immensely deep level editor available. This has led to more user generated maps and game modes than you can shake a stick at. I'm not even going to attempt to list them all. Frankly, there isn't enough time in the universe to see them all, never mind talk about them. Suffice to say, there is no shortage of creativity in the Shootmania player base. Some of the maps are visually impressive from a design perspective. Featuring high plateaus, narrow tunnels, boggy marshes and so much more.

Visually, the game itself is decent. Not superb, and it won't win any awards for it's graphical fidelity, but you wouldn't really expect something that is effectively a 21st century set of digital LEGO to be the next graphical benchmark. That really was not what they were going for. The overall impression and ease of access were clearly the driving factors. And the game succeeds expertly in its goal.

Sound effects, gunfire, footsteps and all thats, they're all solid and fit right in, without being anything complex. They're functional and simple, designed simply to enhance the experience rather than stand out and draw centre stage. Which is just another one of those things that adds to the overall experience, a small part of a more significant whole. That's very much a running motif here. The music on the other hand...it was like listening to Daft Punk's OST for Tron Legacy on a continuous loop. It's absolutely incredible. I'd sometimes just sit there in spectator mode, watching what other people were doing, just so I could listen to the superb, techno soundtrack.

The control scheme is yet another aspect that's simple and purely functional. Custom key bindings, of course, allow you a small degree of, well, customisation. But as there are effectively only three things you'll ever do (move, shoot and jump/sprint) there are only really six buttons to worry about. The four compass points for movement, your fire button and the 'stamina' button, which is your jump when pressed and sprint when held down. Which allows you to jump and go straight into a sprint when you land if you keep holding it. Hey, you can even 'sprint' in midair to shoot forwards and sort of glide at superhuman speed - because fuck physics.

The Verdict

Though I've already said quite a lot, I've honestly only scratched the surface of what's on offer here. The game is what you make it. It really is. If I was to make any real complaint, it would be the planets (see, I didn't forget) as they don't really do anything. They're supposed to be a kind of in-game currency. But since downloading maps and new game modes - so far at least - is free, they seem to be only superficially useful, if at all. However, as Shootmania is a new addition to the Maniaplanet series, I expect we'll see more uses develop for them over time. Perhaps buying entry to competitions with real world prizes?

Case Review