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ShootMania Storm (PC) Review

 
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SM_STORM_logo
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At a Glance...
 

Formats: PC
 
Genre:
 
Year:
 
Publisher:
 
Developer:
 
Final Score
7.5
7.5/ 10


User Rating
1 total rating

 

We liked?


  • Easy to pick up and play
  • Fun game mechanics
  • Some great community content to play

Not so much?


  • Nothing new about the gameplay
  • Very little variety in the environments
  • Game mode creation in the level editor isn't user friendly


Final Fiendish Findings?

ShootMania Storm is a fun shooter with some interesting game modes and feels a lot like the simpler multiplayer shooters of old. The basic gameplay isn’t anything new, and the lack of different terrains does mean there’s not much change up in the visuals. However, there’s plenty of fun to be had and, if it gets you, it hooks you in. Plus, if you’re the creative type, the level editor will give you plenty to play around with, although it’s not very newcomer. If you liked TrackMania and you like first person shooters, then this is something you should have a look at.

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Posted April 21, 2013 by

 
Full Fiendish Findings...
 
 

Nadeo takes multi-player first person shooters and makes them simple again with ShootMania Storm.

French developer Nadeo is known for the fun racing series TrackMania, which sees you zipping around both developer and community created tracks trying to earn medals for quick times. Now they have turned their hands to the first person shooter genre with ShootMania Storm.  What they’ve created is a shooter that allows anyone to get to grip the basics, but takes time to truly master.

ShootMania Storm takes the idea of a multi-player shooter back to basics, doing away with things like experience points, ranks and perks.  Instead, you have your character, a gun and a jump/sprint button as you shoot your way to victory.  The gun works in different ways depending on your environment.  When you’re out in the open, it’s a standard energy pistol type weapon.  However, the bullets aren’t instant like standard guns and take a bit of time to reach their target, so your opponents have time to dodge and move if they see it coming.  Also, you’re limited to four shots maximum in one burst.  Your gun will recharge over the time, but you will be temporarily vulnerable if you shoot off your entire clip in one go.  If you’re in an enclosed space, the gun becomes a grenade launcher which causes a large amount of damage, but you only have 2 of these before you need a recharge.

Your action button also does different things depending on where you are, so in some areas you’ll jump but in others you’ll sprint.  It’s the combination of knowing the map layouts and knowing exactly when and where each weapon mode becomes active and when you can jump or sprint that will make you a master at this game, and adds a level of complexity to ShootMania beyond the simple run, jump and shoot mechanics the game has.

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Unleash the fireworks!

 There are a couple of different game modes in ShootMania by default.  The Royal mode is a free for all mode where players fight for control of a pole in the middle of the map.  Each player can take two direct hits before dying, but can respawn until the pole has been taken.  Once that happens, you’re eliminated when you die and it continues until one player is left standing.  Joust mode sees you going head to head with another player with the first person to hit their opponent 6 times winning, but your shots don’t recharge unless you capture a pole on the map.  Then there’s Elite mode, which sees teams of 3 fight it out with each other.  However, in each round it’s one ‘elite’ person from one side with 3 hit points against the entire other team with one hit point each.  All modes are interesting changes from the FPS norms.  Latency is also almost non existent when playing against players from other continents, although you might notice a bit of lag when playing worldwide.  For those competitive types amoungst you, there are rankings ladders so you can compare to yourself to not only players around the world, but your own continent, country and even the area of your country.

ShootMania looks crisp and clean, with great looking textures and character models and nice effects from weapons and the storms that come in on certain maps.  You even get a choice of whether to install low or high resolution texture packs, so you can play this on a lower end machine without it straining too much.  The only downside seems to be that there doesn’t seem to be much variety to the looks of the maps.  It just all looks like various arrangements of grass, concrete and sand.

Plenty of depth in the level editor

Plenty of depth in the level editor

Of course, the main focus of ShootMania Storm is what the community can do for the game, which is where the level editor comes in.  There are two modes for the editor, basic and advanced.  However, the basic level editor is very basic indeed, and doesn’t give you all that much to do, so it’s really all about the more advanced editor.  There’s a lot you can do in it, to the point that you can even create your own game modes if you’re handy enough, although its not the most user friendly experience.  There’s plenty of scope for user created content and there’s already some pretty decent stuff up there, although the community isn’t massive at this moment in time.

FINAL THOUGHTS
ShootMania Storm is a fun shooter with some interesting game modes and feels a lot like the simpler multiplayer shooters of old.  The basic gameplay isn’t anything new, and the lack of different terrains does mean there’s not much change up in the visuals.  However, there’s plenty of fun to be had and, if it gets you, it hooks you in.  Plus, if you’re the creative type, the level editor will give you plenty to play around with, although it’s not very newcomer.  If you liked TrackMania and you like first person shooters, then this is something you should have a look at.


Mike Jones

 
Mike first started writing about video games at the age of 10 when he wrote a Sonic Chaos review for his school newspaper, and hasn't looked back since. Favourite game genres include MMOs, racing games and puzzlers, but he'll try most things once.


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