I think I’ve heard every reason as to why playing an FPS on a console is somehow better than playing one on the PC. Being an avid PC shooter myself I find the whole idea bizarre, but equally I’m happy that people have made First-Person Shooters work on consoles. At least this way an entire genre isn’t missed out from people who are “Console Only”.

The problem with this clash of cross platform preference is that some people actually believe they’d be better at an FPS on a console over a PC user. Unless you’re using a mouse and keyboard plugged into your console, you’re screwed. The turning accuracy, speed and ease of a PC user are far superior to a control pad. But of course until games like Halo 3 and Shadowrun came out we couldn’t actually prove this. However, even putting aside the laughable fact that they’ve made them both bloody Vista only games, Shadowrun’s development team have only won the PC users long running argument by handicapping PC users turning speed and reticule admitting that “PC users can turn faster” – News Flash: We knew that, we were waiting to prove that ourselves thanks. Sigh.

But that whinge aside, which is basically why the game has been getting slated since the beginning, I’m going to review the game for what it is on a console. Yes that’s right, and unbiased review from a PC shooter…playing a FPS on a console. Ha. Ha. Wish me luck.

According to the ancient Mayan calendar, magic is cyclical, leaving the world and returning every 5000 years. So if those fireballs you’ve been trying to launch from your fingertips aren’t working, wait a little longer. Magic supposedly enters the world, grows in power, peaks and then dies off again. When magic last entered the world, a big ‘ol ziggurat was built and a strange glowy stick artefact was, for the sake of future gamers, conveniently left somehow connected to it. Over the millennia that followed, the ziggurat was buried hidden in the side of a mountain.

[Dramatic cue, deep voice, large percussive bang] – Then, on December 24th 2011, at precisely 2pm EST – Elvis returned. Additionally a completely unrelated event occurred. Magic started to come back. These events left change, confusion and a plethora of new rock hits and elderly jivers in its wake.

The years that followed would change the face of the planet as a powerful multinational corporation dubbed RNA Global strive to control magic for themselves and Lineage, the resistance, fight to stop them.

This all sounds fairly exciting boys and girls; here we have an opportunity to cross magic with First / Third Person Shooter gaming, that should add a touch of colour to what has otherwise become a somewhat carbon copy gaming scenario. With quite a large rival Bungee releasing a Multiplayer Beta for Halo 3 around the same time, will this have enough to snatch their attentions?
While it says online play, you can get to grips with the tutorials and play against bots until you feel confident going tête-à-tête with real people. Not only that, but it’s worth during the tutorials to get an idea of all the different races, magic and tech’s ups and downs. While the tutorials might make you think that certain races have certain magic traits, this isn’t the case, which I have to say I would’ve found a better idea. You have a certain amount of essence available which powers your magic skill set. You can buy magic and tech at the start of each round (Think a counter-strike set up for those of you who’ve played it).

You can be 1 of 4 races:

Human – The all rounder
Dwarf – Steal other people’s essence and have slightly more available, although regenerate slower.
Elf – Can regenerate health if not in combat, slightly more essence also.
Troll – Slow moving, beefcake of a race that can take a lot of hits.

The skill sets you can get range from being able to teleport through walls and resurrecting players, to moving faster and being able to see players through walls (Yes no more shouting “Wallhack!” anymore as it’s built in).

This combination of magic, race and tech leads to some great gameplay. The variations of what you can choose as your ideal set up is vast and allows for a lot of different combat scenarios. While some might like to sneak around with smoke activated (Makes you somewhat invisible and stops you taking damage) and wielding a katana to get up-close-and-personal, others might like being a troll with a minigun and holding down the fire button. Each to their own, and that’s one thing that Fasa Studio should be praised for – thinking outside the box.

It has to be said the graphics look somewhat dated now, although I try to be reasonable when it comes to online games for bandwidth reasons, I’d like to play the game rather than spend a huge amount of time lagging out to eye-candy. This said, I still think the levels look fairly bland, and a larger variety of scenarios could have been offered. For your usual £40 you’ll only get 9 maps and 3 game modes, which will leave you feeling like you’ve just spent a load of money on a demo rather than the full game. Whether they plan to have downloadable content at a later date, that will be free for a player to get their hands on, we don’t know as of yet but can only hope.

It’s also missing the epic score to accompany any would be wanton carnage lover, which is a shame. There’s nothing better than timing a well-placed rocket to the face with a rising crescendo or drop into some monolithic series of tribal fusion. Sure I can bung on the MP3’s, but I just paid a lot of money for this buddy – I want it all.
Being a fulltime run-and-gun shooting lover, the gameplay has offered a lot, and I could still pick it up now and have a good run, the downfall in other areas has left a somewhat bitter aftertaste in my gamers taste buds. It’s a game worth playing, if you didn’t pay full price for it and you’re not planning on getting it for PC.