Reviews// Shootmania: Storm

After striking proverbial gold with popular user-created content bonanza TrackMania, developer Nadeo seems determined to expand its ideals outwards into other genres within their ManiaPlanet umbrella. In a fairly safe move given the popularity of the genre, they’ve opted to go for an FPS first, bringing us to the aptly-titled ShootMania.

With a style that many will find reminiscent of games like Unreal Tournament and Quake, ShootMania will probably feel reassuringly familiar to many. Aiming for more of a light-hearted and sporty competitive atmosphere rather than the more common vindictive bloodbath however, ShootMania takes a few interesting steps away from general FPS staples in an effort to carve its own identity into the face of the genre.

A key difference from other games is the lack of weapon pick-ups. Instead, everyone is outfitted with the same firework-firing rocket launcher, putting everyone on an even playing field. Ammo is another traditional mechanic that ShootMania does away with: instead your launcher is powered by an energy bar that quickly refills when not being fired. Firing too quickly will briefly leave you defenceless, so there’s a sense of tacticality involved in deciding on the right time to fire a barrage at unsuspecting enemies.

An interesting feature of the weapon is that it changes its function depending on what kind of terrain you’re standing on, becoming a sort of delayed grenade launcher thing while inside tunnels, for example. If you’re the sort of person who actually thinks about what they’re doing this could prove to be a fairly tactical feature, though if you’re an instinctive man of action like myself you might not find it coming into play too often.

ShootMania’s core gameplay revolves primarily around the comparatively slow-moving projectiles launched from your blaster. Shots have to be aimed to compensate for enemy movements, making predicting the enemy’s actions the most critical part of combat. Conversely, constant movement and evasive jumping is a crucial part of staying alive. It makes for a nice change from the heavy focus on cover that most other shooters favour at the moment and keeps the pace of the game incredibly quick. Obviously cover’s still useful and important, but generally speaking if you stop moving for any length of time you’re leaving yourself vulnerable, and you don’t want that.

An early problem I had with ShootMania was the complete lack of any single player content. I mean ok, I get that we’re in a competitive multiplayer shooter here and playing alone would kind of defeat the purpose. But Nadeo could have at least thrown in a training mode or something so I could try the game out and get a feel for it before plunging straight into the thick of things. Instead I was forced to brave the harsh outside world untested and untrained before being repeatedly curb-stomped by coldly efficient Frenchmen.

Now, ShootMania’s gameplay is definitely fast-paced and straightforward enough that anyone should be able to get the gist of it quite quickly. Where things get trickier is being able to do it better than that other guy. The one who’s holding on to the top spot and taking on all-comers. I hate that guy.

Most of my time playing was spent in the sixteen man free-for-alls of Royal mode, where I could sneak around trying to pick off any stragglers who were less coordinated than I was. The Elite and Joust modes are a bit smaller and more personal. Elite pits one super-charged player against a team of three and Joust offers a one-on-one duel where both players have to scrounge up ammo before trying to take each other down.

Adding to the early befuddlement of ShootMania is the fact that the game really doesn’t tell you what these modes are beforehand, and you could probably be forgiven for stumbling into your first match without even realising what you’ve decided to play.