We Call It “No Man’s Land”
by Orion_NGC1976, HSM Editor
PlayStation Home is evolving quickly into a mature gaming platform of its own and not just a fun place for gamers to meet. I have been on Home for about two years, and during that time I have seen the number and quality of games in Home increase dramatically. The Home community has asked for team based multi-player games that were avatar playable, and last September, with the launch of the Action District, Bootleggers ’29 was delivered.
Last March, it was announced that there would be three more multi-player games coming to Home in the first half of 2012. The first of the three was the extraordinarily fun pirate ship cannon ball shooting game Cutthroats. Cutthroats brought the multi-player gaming experience in Home to an entirely new level. The second multi-player game that was promised is the newly released No Man’s Land from Home developer, VEEMEE, that has brought to us the Go Fish mini-game.
I must interject that I do not play shooter games. I have never played Call of Duty, Battlefield, Socom, Killzone, etc. My only gaming experience is with adventure games that incorporate shooting as part of the game, so I have no direct knowledge in comparing the game mechanics to other games of this genre.
Upon entering No Man’s Land, an introductory narrative is played. This gives the player a sketchy backdrop story for the post-apocalyptic environent in which the player finds him or herself, where weapons are the rule of the land. The narrative ends with these words, “The old ones called this place America. We just call it ‘No Man’s Land.'”
Fighting AI characters in the tutorial
Once the narrative is completed, you continue on to the tutorial, which does a fairly good job of introducing you to the basics of the game play. We soon discover that this is a third person shooter and that it is not free roaming, as one might expect. Your movements are limited to places where the player can take cover. The tutorial immediately reminded me of the Home Total Game Integration version of the Uncharted 3: Fortune Hunter game, with similar methods for movement and aiming. This is where the similarities between the two games end.
The map of the Uncharted 3 space was limited to four access points at any one time and you had to select each cover point in sequence. No Man’s Land has removed that limitation by implementing a different method of moving between a point of cover or series of points of cover, called “Cover-to-Cover” movement, that greatly enhances movement. To move to the next cover point, simply point the left joystick towards the desired cover point which will be highlighted and tap the X button. If you tap the X button twice you will vault over the first cover point and progress on to the second cover point. It took me a little while to get used to this but becomes very intuitive fairly quickly. Although some veterans of shooter games may see this as a serious drawback, as a novice to this genre of gaming, it was a relief to not have to worry about running, taking cover, aiming and shooting all at the same time.
There are other additions: strafing at a cover point, two modes of aiming, ability to lob grenades and, of course, multi-player mode. The first mode of aiming is “Tru-aiming,” which, I imagine, is the most accurate way of aiming. In this mode, you are aiming from a standing position and will most likely be exposed to return fire. The other mode allows you to fire from a crouching position or from behind cover. Although this gives you greater protection, it probably reduces your accuracy.
Guns N’ Armor
After completion of the tutorial, you are transported to the Drydocks. The Drydocks is the main lobby where you can meet up with people to play. There is a leader board and an area to equip weapons and armour. As one would expect each weapon or amour has its good points and its drawbacks. From my experience as a dying player, it seems the sniper rifle is the deadliest taking only two shots to drop you. You can equip two hand weapons and two throwable explosives. You are able to switch between weapons via the D-Pad to utilize the desired weapon.
From the Drydocks, you can launch into an instance of the game. You can choose single or multi-player and for multi-player, which map and which game type to play. Currently there is only the urban map to play and there are two game selections: Death Match and Scavengers. With Death Match, the winning team is the team that kills the greater number of opponents, and with Scavengers it is the team that retrieves the most salvage packs.
You will then be transported to the secondary lobby in an abandoned subway station. Here you can make last minute equipment changes and split up into teams with a maximum of four on each side.
My first experience with the multi-player game was not a good one and I could have easily walked away hating this game. While I was trying to figure out the mechanics of the game and learning where I was supposed to take the supply packs, two veterans (one of which was at the top of leaderboard), were cleaning up and taking me out time after time. I do feel good that I did get a few kills in before one of them camped out near where I was respawning, taking me out repeatedly with the sniper rifle.
My second experience with the game was much different. This time there were full teams of four on each side. This allowed me time to get more comfortable with the controls, even though I had accidentally inverted the Y-axis, and also learn from observing more experienced players.
Multi-player mode
One complaint that I have is that the tutorial is the only scenario available in single player mode. There is no way for a novice to try to hone their skills in a safer environment. Although the tutorial is adequate in showing you the basics, it does nothing in helping you acquire the gaming skills required for the multi-player game. In the tutorial, you are stuck with a basic handgun and no grenades. Hardcore gamers of shooters may laugh, but it took me a long time to be able to successfully throw a grenade at an opponent without being killed first. I am hoping that VEEMEE will extend the single player games to include missions of its own. This way one can develop game strategies and skills without the added complexity of an experienced player hunting you. Also, having single player gaming scenarios will expand the playability of the game as there will be a certain segment of the Home community that may want to play as a single player game.
As a Free-to-Play game in Home, VEEMEE has done an outstanding job at bringing a multi-player, third person shooter game to the Home community with wonderful graphics and smooth player animation. As a person who does not play shooting games, I found the game play enjoyable and manageable even for a novice like me.
- Great graphics
- Smooth player movement animation
- Game play that involves strategy
- Team voice chat channel
- Good collision detection
- Takes time to get used to the controls
- No training ground to hone gaming skills
- No Single Player scenarios
June 20th, 2012 by Orion_NGC1976 | 7 comments
Father, husband, dolphy racer and sometimes Home world traveler.
I am glad you did this review as I am just like you, I don’t play these types of games at all. I thought this was supposed to be a FPS, glad to see it is third person, that alone will make me give it a shot. I too hate it when people camp or just kill you right away and you never get a chance to really try the game out. If that happens to me when I do this I will likely give up right away as I hate getting frustrated in a game, I play to relax not get angry because someone won’t even give me a chance to play. This will be interesting.
Overall, it sounds like a game that if you just try it once, you’re going to walk away frustrated and hating it. However, if you’re patient enough (and in this world, patience is worth it’s weight in myrrh), you stand a fair chance of being well-rewarded.
Well rewarded? I’m not sure about that Terra, that outfit and a few guns costs nearly $50!
As opposed to simulated diamonds for what, nearly $40?
Reward, in gamer terms, can mean many things. For (too) many in Home, it means free item rewards. In the generation of gaming you and I come from, it means you’ve survived to play the next level.
Very true. I’m just sore coz I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped I might after reading Norse’s thing I guess.
I think what you’re experiencing (and this is me just interpreting) is exactly what Norse experienced in his initial take on the game. And while for someone just playing the game, that’s fine, but when you’re reviewing, you do want to give something a fair shake before making a final verdict. Hence the Ultima reference. That experience is the sample perspective to give the reader an idea of the learning curve a player coming into the game with little or no experience in shooters is going to have. The choice of slugging it out to get over that curve is up to the player.
Oh, absolutely! If I was reviewing it, I’d have to go back and keep going. But I knew it wasn’t for me as soon as I finished the tutorial and that canned grizzly bear in your head says “welcome to no man’s land”, I just thought “Yeah, no thanks”. The whole 30 or so minutes I spent with it (which granted, is nothing) I can see it’s not going to change its philosophy anywhere down the line; the tutorial told me all I need to know. If the constant snap-to, twitch shooter gameplay had anything more to it, they’d probably say so during the tutorial. So from where I am, as a consumer (and knowing Home)I’ll be seeing a lot of those death-screens unless I get myself some serious armour, and the first look at what was on offer I stumbled over a $49.99 suit. That just freaked the hell outta me so I ran for it! Lol
For me, I’m out. I do like the theme, but the mechanics are odd and it would take a strong argument to get me back in there with an open mind. It’s great that devs are trying new things with Home, I’m all for it, but perhaps it’s not ready to take on the main stream shooter yet. I have no doubt this will do very well, given the typical pricing of Home items and the sheer swathes of stuff they’ll be able to sell from it. I just hope Mercias controls are tweeked a little before release!