NaughtyDutchman

Hello folks. Naughty Dutchman here. Call me Dutch if you like. I'll preface with a small FAQ bit so you all understand why I feel the way I feel, and we can go from there. Is this your first time playing Renegade? Yes and No. A close friend of mine were both avid C&C fans. And while we played Generals endlessly together, he had gotten Renegade through a special release of some sort. I played it with him for all of ten minutes and never got to play it again, but it was fun. Whats your experience with FPS games? I have over 12 years of Battlefield under my belt, from the original Battleifled 1942, to the current Battlefield 4. I've played Unreal Tournament 2004 almost as religiously as Battlefield and wholly believe Cliff Blizinski's greatest achievements were the Unreal Series. I've played many others. I feel it enceassary to add this because I want you all to understand I'm not coming in off my ass when I make the comments I make. I love FPS games as a genre and think it's one of the truest forms of gaming in the modern world. Whats your over-all game experience? I've been at it since I was eight years old, starting with 1998's Half-Life. So! Lets get down to it! What do you think? It's great! It reminds me a lot of a mixture between the fast paced action you'd find in UT2k4, likely because of the engine. And it plays with some of the scale of Battlefield 2. It's a wonderful combination that with continuous improvement, could make for a unique and compelling, in-depth gameplay experience. Both the GDI and NOD feel as unique and fun as they do in their C&C RTS counterparts, each with a unique array of vehicles, weapons and characters. The maps are fun, but tend to be very head on and somewhat small, though I notice it helps keep the action alive. The base mechanic is wonderful, giving teams a set of objectives to attack, defend and maintain. It hearkens to the origins of the game and provides a goal for players. The overall experience has been a blast but there are a few flaws, however in the game's present state they barely affect the game seriously aside from the major ones. Hold on! You compared it to other games! You need to look at it apart from them! I did. And No I don't. RenX is indeed a unique game, however just like any game it's had influences and has potentially influenced other games. It also does not exist in a vacuum. It's easy when you have played a great many games to find elements and other things in one game similar to another you've played. RenX is no different. I mentioned UT2k4 and the BF series earlier because those are the two games I am reminded of when I play this. Is it like BF3 & 4? No, hardly anything like those. 3&4 are shadows of their predecessors by miles. Is it exactly like UT2k4? No, but a lot of the pacing and the weapons remind me of UT2k4, and this is a good thing because it means the game is calling to the parts of me positive experiences I had in those games! Far too often we as gamers place far too much value on one game being like another. And it's true, some games do often end up being too much like one another or even exact copies in some ways. But we must also recognize that sometimes games will end up having similar qualities, remember that it's not where you take things from, it's where you take them to! Alright, Alright... so you mentioned something about the Maps? Yes. The maps are nice, colorful and vibrant and not drab grey lifeless landscapes like the one's now showing up in most 'gritty' FPS/Action games today. They're terrain is varied and there are multiple avenues for attack, however most of them follow a very similar formula of One major path with multiple flanking paths, and thats nice depending on the map, but some variation would be good. Also, vehicles cant seem to access some terrain that should be easily if not effortlessly accessed by them, I'm sure theres some logic behind it such as giving infantry a place to be safe but to be truthful being limited in access to what is logically accessible by vehicles can feel a little too restrictive given the size of some maps. Speaking of size, most of these maps, as I'm sure its only necessary for the beta seem to be capable of accommodating a balanced number of players, most of them feel to be sized for only 24 players. I'm sure with the technology in the Unreal engine one could see maps accommodating the size of 64 player maps comparable to the ones like we see in UT2k4 or newer installments. Right now vehicles feel particularly cludgy on these and aircraft are very severely limited in their viable uses in such small maps. Overall the maps aren't bad, however, and I look forward to more. What was that about vehicles? They feel cludgy. By cludgy I mean that they feel very limited. With the size of some of these vehicles and their speed, which I will assume is adapted to the size of the maps, most of them feel very limited in their options. Im sure this returns tot he spirit of the old game but there can be many improvements to them later on. Among my chief complaints is that a lot f=of them can be damaged even by the regular assault rifle. This reminds me of Halo and whereas Halo's game play is arena, this element honestly has no place in a game with tactical and RPS systems in place. Another problem is that vehicles currently lag heavily on populated servers and I'm aware that's already being addressed which makes me very excited. Finally, most vehicle weapon functions seem to be very basic at this time and I hope to see better implementation like some kind of artillery spotting mechanism or a much more tuned up locking system for missiles. You also had a few words on the buildings? Indeed. It's what I feel is probably the game's most unique game type quality. The buildings as I've said give a very solid objective for players to focus in on and quickly become the center of strategies to both attack, defend and maintain. This is a very good feature that I hope gets some more attention as time goes on. There are however a few flaws. Sometimes the buildings are downright easy to damage like vehicles, sometimes taking noticeable damage from non-explosive weapons. While I generally see this as a non issue, I find it limits the needs for heavier weapons to be used, even if the damage lighter weapons do isn't all that panic inducing, it is certainly a nuisance, but a nuisance I can live with. Another issue is that some buildings have very wonky geometry sometimes, leaving you unable to access parts of them that would otherwise appear accessible such as the the GDI garage, maybe I just had a weird issue but it seems like one should be able to access such a large open space. In conclusion this part of the game is a lot of fun to explore and strategize with! What about characters and weapons? I like that this game mixes a class system and character/heroes together, and even allows you to select custom secondary weapons and munitions to round out your kit. It feels familiar to me after years of playing TFC, UT2k4 and the BF series, and the heroesque classes take me right back to the those "Hell yeah" moments I had in Star Wars Battlefront so long ago. Generally I have no issues with this side of the game, if only I'd like to see improvements in weapon accuracy to make it feel much less hitscan and more authentic and challenging. I'd also liek to see some improvements with deployable such as the the superweapons and air strikes so that they're more of a threat and also a bit easier to find than he often anomalous "beeping" I hear. Killing other players feels a bit empty with no real impact, however this i greatly lessens with the very humerus "boink" sound which reminds me i'm actually succeeding with something. With further improvements this part of the game will be ship shape in no time at all. Why were you so critical of this game? Did you really like it as much as you say you do? I do like it, very much. it's a unique, refreshing and very in-depth experience not offered by many games these days, and it's free! But when you're passionate about something, and you care, being critical can be an important tool for building not only your own experience but it can also help shape and improve the experience of everyone else too. The game really has a lot of promise, and just from the beta it's easy tot ell that it's accomplished a great deal and that the devs have put their heart and soul into this game, and it will be an honor to grow with it both as a player and an aspiring designer. Always remember, you are what you play. Until the next post....

I'd hate to say it but this game doesn't exist in a vacuum. It can benefit from many of the improvements of games that are similar to it. And just because a game has influences or shares qualities similar to others isn't a bad thing.