Conlcusion, final thoughts and awards (ha! Awards? I don't think so...)
So, let’s sum up Warmonger and of course the big bonus is that it’s completely free. If you hit the Warmonger website you’ll find links there to download the game without needing to sign up to FilePlanet or whoever, so you don’t even need to give your e-mail address out. This is the games biggest plus point.The downside is that if you’re on a capped net connection, you’ll hate Warmonger and yourself for ever downloading it as everything after clicking ‘Install’ goes downhill from there. Ok, you didn’t pay for it but my lord, you are paying for the electricity to run the PC that’s running Warmonger and even that grates on my nerves. In fact, as far as free games go, given the hour it takes to download and install Warmonger, I’d rather play some sloppily coded flash game than this… at least I’ll be in and out and onto something else within five minutes.
Click for larger imageMuch has been made that Warmonger uses the Unreal Engine 3 but, just as with Unreal Tournament 3, there’s only so much a game engine can do before you’ve got to input some form of creativity. And that, other than the clichéd graphics, weapons and gameplay modes and the crap AI, is Warmonger’s biggest problem… it’s a game that manages to be repetitive even on the first play because you’ve seen everything before (and likely implemented better too).
Ok, I can’t write games. I wouldn’t know one bit of code from another and I’m about as useful as a chocolate teapot with art or 3D packages so there’s nothing I could contribute to Warmonger. But at the same time, the guys creating this must’ve looked at it and thought it wasn’t particularly good. And here’s the crux of the matter: Warmonger just isn’t fun to play. To be perfectly honest, given the choice between self-mutilation and Warmonger, I’d opt for Warmonger. But given the choice between doing nothing or Warmonger, I’d opt for doing nothing.
Click for larger imageThe physics implementation, whilst generally pretty good, serves to highlight a major problem with the idea itself, and that’s that developers seems more than a little unsure of what to actually do with the physics now they’ve got it. Half Life 2 had a few physics based puzzles, Crysis has trees that can drop on people and kill them and Warmonger has walls that can be blown down and bits that zing all over the place… but none of this really contributes to the gameplay.
Perhaps developers are trying to deliver too much and failing because of it? Perhaps their perception of our expectations is wrong? Personally, I’d take fun over realism every time. Sure, design a brick in the game that has weight and crumbles when shot… but if I can’t pick it up and lob it in an enemy’s face or knock a whole pile of bricks over to crush the guy on the other side, then don’t bother, it’s nothing more than unnecessary window dressing.
My point is this: If you're going to slot more realistic physics into a game, then follow through all the way. Either destructible objects are blown to smithereens with little rubble left, or the rubble remains as a real world object that blocks your way and can hurt you if it drops on you. Flags caught in explosions should catch fire or be torn from their mounts to blow away, perhaps out of the playing area if you don't want to render the damn thing any more. You could even have them catch fire, meaning you could create a flaming death shroud for the enemy... And yes, it's no problem if not everything is a physical object but make it obvious which is and which isn't... something even as simple as giving walls different textures would do it, then at least you know what to expect. (And for the record, if I can blow down a brick wall, logic dictates that a wooden door should be no problem, so fix that too... logic, see?)
So this leads me to the following conclusion: Whilst Warmonger might be as free as the air you breathe, it’s not very much more than a playable tech demo for Unreal Engine 3… but even then it’s so below par and basically flawed that it does neither UE3 nor Ageia any favours.
Pros
You’ve wasted nothing but bandwidth and time getting it
It’ll show off your PhysX card nicely.
Cons
Everything else
Warmonger: drop the ‘War’ and the ‘er’ from the title and you’ve got it…
HEXUS Awards
AVOID
Warmonger - PC
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Warmonger is available now, click the following links:www.warmongergame.com
