Section 8 first thoughts.

[HereComesPete]

UT3 engined shooter thingy, bit like tribes with jetpacks and classes. Not quite the full polish of UT3 but it runs better because of this.

Has roughly defined classes that are sniper, assault, heavy weapons, sneaky bugger, all rounder.

Each class can be customised in terms of guns, tools and armour capabilities.

Guns - assault rifle, pistol, shotty, rocket launcher, smg etc etc. All standard fare. Possessing of a lock on feature that allows to you get a few seconds of spazz fire because the bullets have homing effects, will still miss if you're careless though. Some of them are a bit op at the moment, a surprise pistol to the back of the head is four shots to death, it takes more for the assault rifle to do this.

Armour - you can modify the armour to have loads of shield/plating or you can sacrifice it for a faster sprint speed and radar jamming plates. Helps each class become more distinct and changes your play style quite a lot, but in a good way. You can also up gun damage or tool quality at the expense of armour capability.

Tools - so far I've tried grenades (veh big bang, not many) an armour repair tool, a mini scanner thing, ninja stealth, radar stealth and fast recharge. All useful and allow teamwork of a well built but fairly mediocre skilled set of shooters to roll over most opposition.

Sprint mode has a nifty feature that if you do it for long enough you engage super duper sprinty mode, no shooting, hard to turn but gets you across the map toot sweet. Jump is jet packs, weighty armour gets less jump than ninja stuff etc. All very well balanced.

Good feature, instead of fixed spawns you drop in from a drop carrier thingy above the map, you can pick anywhere you want. Using air brakes to guide you in quite accurately. Spawning above enemy controlled points will see you shot down by AA, so you spawn outside it's engagement zone and slide in using thrusters at the last second.

You also earn money for kills, denials of capture etc. With these you can call in drop pods that deliver walker tanks, anti-infantry/anti-air turrets and kit/health respawn turrets.

Maps I've played so far are CP maps, you control them all you score more. Simples.

But you/the enemy can activate other mission types to try and get points. Summon an npc commander, spawn enemy intel to capture and call in a convoy to resupply. You can defend the intel, destroy the enemy commander or convoy to get extra points for your team too.

It all nets you points and shifts focus away from static attack/defend CP stalemates. You can be in possession of all four CP's but the enemy could still win by stealing your intel and resupplying with more trucks than you, so you can't sit and base build or you'll lose. I like this a lot, even though it appears utter chaos at first.

A well built and communicative team can currently dominate the maps more than l33t shooters who don't work well together can, the repairing and restocking and calling in on towers and walkers allows you to change a battle very quickly against superior numbers and quality. I like this too.

[HereComesPete]

Also - Info on beta here

Don't need a sub on failplanet so grab a copy while you can! I doubt they'll run out though, fairly quiet when I was on.

[FatherJack]

The respawn drops sound like they're doing what BF2142 tried and failed to do, and the fast-running sounds like a good antidote to people nicking all the vehicles common in BF and its variants.

[Pnut]

Downloading now and will hopefully have it sorted tomorrow if anyone fancies a go?

[spoodie]

I've played several games of this and quite enjoyed it, once I got my head around what I was supposed to be doing, mostly. I still don't really understand how the ancillary missions work and mostly ignore them.

I'm not sure I'd pay for it but the beta is well worth a go.

[Pnut]

Just had my first go and I think Petes pretty much hit the nail on the head, a team thats willing to work together will win pretty much every time over a team of loners. Once you start getting two teams that are playing like that it will get interesting.

[HereComesPete]

Okies -

missions -

VIP - a commander crash lands on the filed, you pick him up and protect him until his extraction arrives at a different point. If the enemy activates it then you kill him.

Commando - Commando guy drops in, runs around butchering stuff on the way to his objective, you support him as he does his thing then buggers off.

Convoy - A resupply convoy is landed, it's a tank/truck and takes 2 people, drive it to a point and win points, fun because it packs meaty weapons and lots of armour.

Intel - You intercept and return to base a chunk of enemy intel, it gets you points and shows were everyone on the enemy team is for a few minutes.

Each mission is started when you earn points doing stuff, like dropping a radar sensor and scanning enemies or blowing up all their stuff. Each class earns these points at different speeds and can activate certain side missions more often as a result.

It sounds crazy and chaotic but it's great fun. If shit seems too messy, just spawn in your pod, drop onto an enemy base, steal it and then drop some guns and resupply depots around you and keep hold of it.