Absolute Force Online – A Truly Unique FPS

By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Absolute Force Online is an up-and-coming FPS developed by TQ Digital using the Unreal Engine 3. The game features lots of freedom and options mixed with beautiful graphics. Add that with the intense gameplay, you get a one of a kind experience. Absolute Force Online is surely a harbinger of change for the free-to-play FPS genre.

 

 

Features

Hero Battlefield Mode – Once your character has reached a certain amount of deaths, it will become a Hero with highly increased stats and abilities.

Plenty of Customization – From head-to-toe, you are given an incredible number of options to make your character as unique as you want.

Intense Combat – With all the options available to you, you can play however you like and will be given the ultimate experience in FPS combat.

Lots of Game Modes – There are over seven game modes to play. Ranging from the typical Capture the Flag to Zombie Mode.

 

 

I was impressed with the features I came across in Absolute Force Online. They all lived up to their claims as far as I am aware. What surprised me the most was all the freedom given to players, not in just how they can customize their characters’ looks, but in how they can play the game too. TQ Digital did an outstanding job.

 

 

Make Yourself Unique

Absolute Force Online offers an abundant amount of customization. You start by choosing your faction and gender. You can go with Justice Hand, which are basically the good guys. Or you can go with the Fallen Angels, a group of merciless killers. From there you choose your hair style and color, face type, skin color, facial details – such as tattoos, body tattoos, and at the end you choose your character name.

 

 

The customization does not end with character creation. After you have made your character, you can continue to customize him by buying and wearing from a lot of clothing options. From a hilarious panda suit to your typical soldier uniform. The customization variants are nearly endless.

 

 

A Beautiful Game

The graphics in Absolute Force Online are simply amazing. I was constantly filled with awe at all the detail there was. The lighting and shadow effects were superb. I died a number of times just because I had stopped to admire some part of the map. The user interface was perfect. It did not take up much space on the screen and had a design that was pleasing to the eye. I just cannot get over how incredible the graphics are.

 

 

I really liked how bullets have a real impact thanks to the physics engine. When you kill someone, their body will often fly backwards from the bullet impact. More than once, I have had a laugh at how bodies tend to fall in odd ways. Blood will splatter on the ground and wall behind them, too. This makes for a really satisfying experience.

 

 

Controls

If you have played an FPS before, you will be familiar with most of the controls in Absolute Force Online. WASD for movement, left mouse button for shooting and right mouse button for aiming. Double tap and hold W to sprint, or you can hold alt while holding W – which I thought was an odd hotkey. Ctrl for crouching, which you will want to do a lot. Most of it is nothing new or exciting.

 

 

Besides the usual controls, there are also some interesting things thrown in. One of my favorites was the on-the-fly mouse sensitivity changing, using the page-up and page-down keys. I appreciated the ability to quickly switch between third and person mode while in-game. What really impressed me, though, was the left-handed and right-handed support. With the simple push of a key you can switch between the two. Not many games I have played made support for both left and right hands, let alone making it so easy.

 

 

 

Your Fellow Players

Some of the community is nice and helpful; other parts of it are mean and hateful. So, it is your typical FPS community. Most communication centers around people commenting on kills or deaths. There was not anything that really stood out to me. So I cannot say much in this area. I can say that you need to come in to the game knowing that you will probably be called names, accused of cheating, or some other nonsense. But there are also those that will go out of their way to help you and will compliment you rather than insult you.

 

 

Gameplay

Absolute Force Online offers a bit more in this area than your typical FPS. There are a bunch of game modes to play. Each more unique than the last. The available game modes are: Team Death Match, Bomb, Zombie, Arsenal, Death Match, Capture the flag, and vehicle. My favorites were Team Death Match, Arsenal, and Zombie. Vehicle was decent, but I sucked at controlling the helicopter.

 

 

The most exciting mode I played was Arsenal. This is a free-for-all game mode where each time you kill someone, you get a new weapon. This means things are constantly changing. You have to constantly adapt to using a bunch of different weapons. I felt that this game mode was the most extensive test of skill.

 

 

A close second was Zombie. In this mode it is humans versus zombies. The round ends when all humans are turned to zombies. Zombies get a lot of health and can move quickly. Humans can shoot zombies but it’s near impossible to kill one. Shooting them will push them back a lot, however. And it will make them drop buffs that you can grab for a speed boost and such. It only takes one hit from a zombie to turn you.

 

 

Combat in general was an intense experience. The weapon handling was great. I did notice that there was no weapon shake from breathing. I do not know if this will change in the future or not. This made sniping really easy. Sound plays a massive part in the game. A majority of my kills were achieved because I heard someone running. This means walking and crouching is important to cut down on your noise output. This gives the combat a very tactical spin.

 

 

 

Conclusion

Playing Absolute force Online was a wonderful experience. The gameplay was just so splendid for a room-based FPS. The graphics and numerous customization options added a lot that made for a truly unique game. I honestly did not encounter one negative that was more than a trivial gripe or worth mentioning. I cannot get over how close to perfect this game is. Things look bright for the future and I look forward to seeing how this game develops as time goes on.

 

Ace of Spades Early Access

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

 

Hello gamers with a knack for creativity and demolition. Look at Minecraft. Now back at Call of Duty. Look at your dusty Legos. Now Repulse’s Zombie Mode. Now name a title that combines all this goodness in a solid, fun, addicting package. Can’t? I can. It’s Ace of Spades, published by Jagex, and it’s coming to Steam to bring your Minecraft Shooter dreams to the next level.

 

 

So what differentiates this game from its peers? The class system was the first piece thrown in my face from the get-go that made me scratch my head. See they have four classes but two of them can be categorized as fighters while the other two are more akin to builders. While the immediate thought is to just run and gun with the physical prowess and firepower offered by the two fighter classes, the modes that give you a set period of time prior to the fighting starting to build very much favor the builder classes and their ability to quickly set-up/destroy structures to create defensive fortifications that may tip the scales in your favor. Of course there is also the tactic of starting off with all builders and then swapping to all fighters, but let’s break down what each class does so you have a better understanding of the potential strategies involved in Ace of Spades.

 

 

Classes

The Soldier is your tanky front-line teammate, packing a punch with powerful rifles, hardy armor, and high hp. When the only way in is through, this class will hold it down and pave a path of destruction through well-fortified enemy positions. They also carry potentially the most devastating weapon in the game, a mini-railgun that takes a few moments to warm up and then turns whatever it’s facing into swiss cheese.

 

 

The Scout offers the fastest movement and longest jumps, allowing them to specialize in recon and quickly identifying weaknesses in the enemy’s position. If you’re being pummeled by enemy snipers, scouts are your best bet to rush in and take them out faster than your enemy can react. However you’ll have to stay on your toes as they have low hp and limited digging capability. They specialize in a rapid fire SMG for run and gun gameplay.

 

 

The Engineer forms the brunt of your defensive line or tactical mastermind of any major fortress raid. Not only do they excel at digging quickly but can set up turrets in key positions to mow down large numbers of enemies in a flash. These turrets currently must be manned but they are considering making them automated before launch. They can also set up some wicked traps with proximity mines placed on seemingly open holes in your defenses (pro tip – you can dig a small hole, place the mine, then place a block on top of it so the enemy won’t know it’s there until it’s too late!). If using an engineer offensively, a few cleverly placed dynamite packs can level entire walls and bring your foes’ perfect sanctuary down on top of their heads. They are slow and lack some of the stronger weapons of their peers and should be escorted whenever leaving their base. Though if you get stuck in tight corridors with one watch out as their shotgun and grenades pack a punch.

 

 

The Miner is to utility what the soldier is to heavy combat. While the Engineer can dig 2 blocks at a time, the miner can dig 18, allowing for on the fly tunnel creation to take your enemies completely by surprise when their floor suddenly drops out from under them. These slow moving fighters only have a rifle at their command should combat arise, but are worth at least keeping one around on the field due to their tunneling gun. This bad boy flies a long distance taking out blocks in a 9 block diameter, ideal for taking out primary support pillars or cutting off enemy troops by destroying bridges when it simply isn’t an option to get an engineer’s dynamite in position. It can also provide some unique escape route tactics should you need to get your group out of a bad position asap.

 

 

Gameplay

Movement is incredibly fluid and characters feel quite balanced even in this early stage of beta testing. I really liked how far the characters could jump and how fast they could run as it really makes for some fast-paced action in a title that you might think is more focused on building. Though the building itself is incredibly fun and offers plenty of customization of block color and lighting effects to make some pieces of art. Hopefully not long after launch we will see an editor introduced to allow players to build their own maps, though the current maps are quite varied and fun.

 

 

Each class has specific premade structures that they can quickly place on the fly such as bunkers, walls, and platforms that adds a real-time element to building defensive structures in the middle of a gun fight. It was also incredibly entertaining messing with the game’s physics (and the hilarious impact it had on other players). Taking out the trunk of a tree that a sniper is hiding on to watch him fall from his perch was a crowd favorite. I also had the pleasure of building a sniper tower as high as a map would allow only to have a miner take out the base and watch me fall a good 12 seconds to my eventual death. Weapons are well balanced with the stronger weapons suffering from heavy recoil to ensure that any class can hold their own against each other. The ability to switch classes on the fly adds quite a bit of strategic value to the longer matches.

 

 

Some of the maps also have special features such as lower gravity on the moon level or capturable points for. Unfortunately the bomb the enemy’s base and king of the hill modes weren’t available for the demo but will be by launch. Though by far the most entertaining of the special modes was the haunted mansion zombie map in which one player starts as a zombie that can run faster and take more hits than normal players. They then attempt to convert the rest of the players to zombies as the time ticks down from 5 minutes. In our multiple playthroughs we saw everything from soldiers forming a pentagon formation and holding off zombies from all directions to miners digging deep into the ground to hide from the zombies until time ran out. Though the majority of the time the zombies would win out in the end, it was truly a great map to test not only your FPS skills but also your creative defense through environment alteration. The few times we had survives usually revolved around hiding in high towers and destroying the stairs/bridges leading to them. While the zombies can dig and find ways through the walls to overcome this tactic, it costs precious time that sometimes is all that’s required for the survivors to win.

 

 

Conclusion

With a Steam launch date of December, players looking to get their minecraft shooter fix won’t have to wait much longer. Promises of player ranking, constant dev updates, and a solid core game have me quite excited to share this title with my friends for some quick fun gameplay. Rumors of a possible persistent world that players can build, destroy, and fight for control over had me the most anxious for this game to launch. Honesty when your game looks like Legos it doesn’t take long to develop extremely fun new possibilities as Jagex has always successfully banked on in the past. Keep an eye out for our full review of Ace of Spades come its December launch!