First Looks// Post-PAX Impressions: Upsilon Circuit, Viking Squad, World of Warships

The one thing that initially drew me towards Viking Squad was its visuals. For not only does Viking Squad hurtle along like a cartoon - it also looks like one. The artwork on display and the animation would put Disney to shame. A huge amount of credit goes to Jesse Turner, the man behind these incredible visuals, which are self evident when glancing at the screenshots within this preview.

The game world is split into four channels that players run along and switch between freely as they take on each monster. This creates a kind of rank and file mechanic with players setting up foes for killing blows by others and vice versa. Each blow and attack carries with it the possibility of making a critical hit, provided a button is pressed just at the right time. This can best be compared to Gears of War's active reload system, only with punching things and not shooting them.

Viking Squad started development this year and is therefore not likely to see the light of day until sometime in 2015. At present PC and Mac have been cited as platforms for its release.


World of Warships by Wargaming.net

Wargaming has done an amazing job of turning the blight that is free-to-play games into a phenomenally profitable enterprise by making games people want to play. It sounds simple, but that's exactly how free-to-play is supposed to work. World of Tanks was the first free-to-play title released by Wargaming and its success has been regarded as something of a benchmark for the much maligned business model. In November 2013 World of Warplanes appeared to much acclaim, with eight million people signing up to play the World War II combat aircraft MMO.

To complete the trio of WWII vehicular combat games, World of Warships is now on the horizon. Similar to the previous two titles, World of Warships offers the chance for players to take the helm of a fleet of WWII warships. Everything from small frigates to air-craft carriers are on offer, all running within the same engine Wargaming have developed for the original World of Tanks.

World of Warships is to be a team-based combat game with each player taking on a role in a fleet based on their chosen ship. Frigates will scout and harry the opposition in hit-and-run attacks, while battleships will get into position and begin pouring in multiple shells from their incredible range, while being defended by destroyers captained by their team mates. Those familiar with the previous games will be very comfortable with the controls for the warships as they are largely based on the keyboard and mouse system Wargaming favours.

While playing it at PAX Prime 2014 I couldn't help but compare it to the Battlestations games on the Xbox 360. These were very richly detailed WWII sea battle combat sims that I spent many an hour on, and to see it realised again in the form of an MMO is very welcome. World of Warships is very intuitive and doesn't bewilder the player with too much information. This comes as little surprise, as Wargaming has had a lot of practice and time to develop their interfaces with the previous two games.

The one thing that does take many by surprise is the quality of the visuals the Wargaming titles have. This is due primarily to the free to play model that carries with it the burden of it being compared to games that are shoved out with little effort in an attempt to leech some case from its player base.

Wargaming takes the DOTA2 route of presenting a polished title that people would want to play and does not punish those who invest real money into it. With that in mind World of Warships is a stunning looking game, with the water and explosions within it being the most eye-catching. The ships themselves are extremely detailed with animations of the gun turrets as they turn and fire being quite breathtaking.

With World of Warships being part of the Wargaming network, it's possible to have one account that covers all three of their games, once World of Warships is released, which will be in early 2015.