“Let me see your Warface!”, the legendary words screamed at new troops by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the fantastic movie; Full Metal Jacket. Playing the Warface beta on Xbox 360 however, only left me with an expression of frustration and disdain.
Warface is a free-to-play online shooter from Crytek, running on the powerful CryEngine and putting teams of 8 soldiers of multiple classes.
Whilst it’s “free-to-play” you’ll still need and Xbox Gold membership to play online.
The game features 4 classes, the rifleman, the medic, the sniper and the engineer. Class systems are widely used to allow for a change in dynamics and to allow players to specialise in a role. Riflemen are the main shooters in Warface and can resupply allies with ammunition. Snipers are as traditional as any sharpshooter in an FPS, specialising in long range targets. Medics lack stopping power at range, armed with shotguns, but are essential in co-operative efforts with the ability to heal and revive team-mates. Engineers carry smaller SMGs, but are able to repair armour, and set up booby traps.
Initially only the rifleman and the sniper are available, with further equipment being locked until it’s purchased using the in-game currency.
Weapons and items can be bought permanently, or rented, meaning that you shell out some hard-earned Warface dollars, spend a few days with a weapon, and then *poof*, it’s gone. At least you don’t need a Blockbuster card to rent them, but the purchase prices are so high, chances are renting the equipment will be the only chance you get at using it.
There are three currencies in Warface. Dollars, Kredits, and Crowns.
Dollars are earned for playing co-op or verses game modes and can be put towards new weapons, equipment or customisation items.
Kredits is the premium Warface currency. Can still be used to purchase all equipment, but there are special premium items that can only be bought for kredits.
Warface Crowns are a reward for preforming well in co-op missions. This currency is used to acquire the most elite equipment in the game.
There is a basic customisation system allowing you to add some personal flavour to your soldier, but after the cosmetic changes you make at the character creation, all the other changes are purchased pieces of armour and clothing that also apply changes to your soldiers’ statistics. If you want to do anything with this game, you’ll have to shell out your Warface bucks.
Warface brings the weapon customisation from the recent Crysis games, allowing you to swap out attachments on the fly and make your weapon as multi-purpose as possible. Whilst it’s not really necessary to do once you’ve found a set-up that works, and doing so mid-game will often get you killed, the ability to define or broaden your role on the battlefield is one of the cooler features.
After I had finally got my soldier ship shape, spent the few dollars I started with, I jumped into a game. This is a free-to-play game, and on the PC, runs in a browser, so I didn’t expect to be blown away by the aesthetics, but there were moments where Warface was quite a chore to look at. The textures are flat, and the edges of your opponents and the scenery around you are jagged and flawed. Graphics are far from a make-or-break aspect for me, but when the the ugliness jumps out at you so harshly, it can be distracting.
The first game I played was a free-for-all, so there were gunfights at every turn. The amount of combat that I was being thrown into soon showed me how clunky the gun-play is in Warface. Even after playing with every level of controller sensitivity, the controls were still poor when it came to a fire-fight
The weapons give very little feedback, and it’s hard to tell if you’re actually hitting your target. Surprising someone from their blind-spot is still largely pointless and most will turn around and cause some serious hurt, or kill you, before you can drop them.
Many guns have a capped fire-rate, which to a someone who plays a lot of shooters, can be extremely frustrating, if not balanced correctly. Semi automatic weapons fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, but with a capped fire-rate, they will fire when you pull the trigger, as long as you’re not going faster than the game says you should be able to.
A common tactic in a shooter is to quickly switch to your pistol if your main weapon runs dry, most games -Warface included- suggest this feature, and even make it an advantage as the weapon switch time will often be less than a reload time, but in this instance, the advantage is minimal as the gun-play is so disappointing.
In some cases, my weapon wouldn’t even fire. There is a sliding mechanic, that allows you to flow into cover whilst still firing your weapon if you drop down whilst sprinting. I found that if you were to pull the trigger when coming out of a slide, you would only find silence from your end, and most likely death from the enemy you were planning on shooting. This is definitely a bug that will need addressing before full release.
There’s also a co-operative obstacle mechanic, which allows you to call for a buddy on your team to help you climb to an advantageous point that is too high to scale on your own. I found that your calls for assistance fall on deaf ears and few players will actually assist.
With all the sprinting, sliding, and climbing that can be done, it’s a shame that the animations are stiff and awkward, just like the gun-play
As I said, I played the beta on the Xbox 360, and I’ve actually heard some good things about the PC version, but from what I played on the console, Warface definitely needs some work, and a good amount of polish.
There’s many key elements there that could make it a good free-to-play shooter, but with the number of great free-to-play games out now, especially ones that aren’t “pay-to-win”, Warface would need to be bigger, and better than it currently is to stand out amongst the rest.