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Next on the list of games that have come out of Early Access we have Verdun, an FPS set in the time of trenches, gas attacks and nearly constant machine gun fire and artillery: The Great War. Let's see how it holds!
Verdun, developed by M2H and Blackmill Games is a realistic tactical first-person shooter set in the First World War. You play as a soldier and your job is as simple as possible: you alternate between attacking the enemy positions and defending your own while dodging machine gun fire, deadly airborne toxins and the explosive shells that fall squealing towards the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT1ACbLHIzw
Verdun has been one of the few Early Access games I've followed closely during their development. I'm a sucker for all things history and since the First World War hasn't been explored in video games at all really (unless you count the numerous flight simulators and the likes) I absolutely had to pick this game up. And in my opinion Verdun does a good job of demonstrating the conditions of the trench warfare and its numerous horrors and dangers while still being fun to play.
Verdun has two game modes. One is called Rifle Deathmatch and it's just free for all using the weapons the game has to offer, mostly rifles that is. But the main attraction is the Frontlines game mode, which pits two teams consisting of multiple squads against each other in traditional trench warfare. The teams alternate between attacking, defending and counter-attacking and if one team manages to attack and hold the enemy trench long enough, that trench will be captured and the next enemy line is open for attacks. The game actually directs your movements quite a lot and enforces these attack and defend phases. During defend phase you must stay in your trenches or behind them. Staying in the No Man's Land will simply get you killed for desertion. And when you are attacking you can't go further than the closest enemy line. This is actually really good, because that makes the teams play together and keeps the game in constant motion. Teamplay is also heavily encouraged by various bonuses that you will get for staying around your team mates and helping them.
A squad is a very central part of the whole game. Both teams consist of squads and squads consist of four players, each with their own specific role and weapons. You have the squad leader, who gives orders and can usually call in artillery support or gas attacks, a sniper, a machine gunner and a grenadier. However, the squad configuration depends entirely on the squad type. The Chasseurs Alpins are a recon oriented squad and their squad members have binoculars, high powered rifles and the ability to call in recon planes to scout the No Man's Land and enemy lines for hostiles. The Stosstruppe (or Stoßtruppe) on the other hand are a quick assault group with plenty of grenades and advanced weaponry like early SMGs. Really handy tools for clearing trenches.
Not all weaponry is available to you straight away however. Each role in a squad has their own set of tools of death but leveling up and gaining career points is required to unlock more load outs and the best possible guns. You usually start with a rifle of some kind and maybe a bayonet but with some career points you could switch that to a pistol and two hand grenades for example. Switching between these load outs is also handy when you go from one phase of the battle to another. Rifles might be clumsy in close quarter combat and pistols are nearly worthless at a distance of 100+ meters.
The gameplay is mostly you running between your and the enemy's lines and while that might sound boring on paper, the actual experience is quite different. Verdun attempts to be as realistic as possible and thus a single bullet is often deadly. Reaching the enemy side or falling back to your trenches requires careful planning and plenty of taking risks and running through a storm of machine gun rounds and explosions is really thrilling. Even though you end up dying a lot it's still fun and exciting and finally jumping into the enemy trench feels rewarding.
The game also features a system to balance out the teams in case one team is missing players. If the teams are unbalanced the team with more players receives a score and spawn timer penalty, meaning that they receive less experience and it takes longer for them to respawn. For the most part this seems to balance out games where your team is missing one to three players. I doubt it would work out all that well if more people were to be missing but luckily servers seem to be quite packed most of the time.
Sadly the game does have its share of problems. While the gameplay certainly is fun and exciting, the game has a tendency to crash every once in a while. That coupled with the fact that you'll lose the experience points you've gained during a match if you disconnect before the round is over makes it really annoying. There is also a really weird bug which some people call “The Party Time” or “Ceasefire” where both teams lose the ability of doing damage with their weaponry for some time. I ran into this bug back in when the game was still in Early Access and it seems it has carried over to the full version as well. Luckily it's a quite rare bug and it seems to fix itself after a while.
What is not rare, however, is the bad performance the game has. Verdun is made in Unity3D and just like many other games using that engine, Verdun has hard time reaching 60 FPS. I remember the game running better in Early Access but now I have to drop all of the settings to low to keep the game running at 40-60 FPS. Considering that I have a relatively powerful GTX 760 I'd say the game requires plenty of optimization. So prepare to have to drop your settings quite a bit, Verdun won't be a game you'll max out unless you have a supercomputer of some sort available.
So even though the game is really good, it isn't perfect. I've had fun playing it and the community seems to be quite good for a multiplayer game but the performance and crashes were a bit of a bummer. Hopefully those can still be worked on and maybe we'll see the game work a lot better in the future. For now though, I'll give the game a cautious recommendation. If you want some variety in your multiplayer FPS games and are willing to put up with some crashes and a framerate that will probably be below your monitor's refresh rate, go for it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Verdun, developed by M2H and Blackmill Games is a realistic tactical first-person shooter set in the First World War. You play as a soldier and your job is as simple as possible: you alternate between attacking the enemy positions and defending your own while dodging machine gun fire, deadly airborne toxins and the explosive shells that fall squealing towards the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT1ACbLHIzw
Verdun has been one of the few Early Access games I've followed closely during their development. I'm a sucker for all things history and since the First World War hasn't been explored in video games at all really (unless you count the numerous flight simulators and the likes) I absolutely had to pick this game up. And in my opinion Verdun does a good job of demonstrating the conditions of the trench warfare and its numerous horrors and dangers while still being fun to play.
Verdun has two game modes. One is called Rifle Deathmatch and it's just free for all using the weapons the game has to offer, mostly rifles that is. But the main attraction is the Frontlines game mode, which pits two teams consisting of multiple squads against each other in traditional trench warfare. The teams alternate between attacking, defending and counter-attacking and if one team manages to attack and hold the enemy trench long enough, that trench will be captured and the next enemy line is open for attacks. The game actually directs your movements quite a lot and enforces these attack and defend phases. During defend phase you must stay in your trenches or behind them. Staying in the No Man's Land will simply get you killed for desertion. And when you are attacking you can't go further than the closest enemy line. This is actually really good, because that makes the teams play together and keeps the game in constant motion. Teamplay is also heavily encouraged by various bonuses that you will get for staying around your team mates and helping them.
A squad is a very central part of the whole game. Both teams consist of squads and squads consist of four players, each with their own specific role and weapons. You have the squad leader, who gives orders and can usually call in artillery support or gas attacks, a sniper, a machine gunner and a grenadier. However, the squad configuration depends entirely on the squad type. The Chasseurs Alpins are a recon oriented squad and their squad members have binoculars, high powered rifles and the ability to call in recon planes to scout the No Man's Land and enemy lines for hostiles. The Stosstruppe (or Stoßtruppe) on the other hand are a quick assault group with plenty of grenades and advanced weaponry like early SMGs. Really handy tools for clearing trenches.
Not all weaponry is available to you straight away however. Each role in a squad has their own set of tools of death but leveling up and gaining career points is required to unlock more load outs and the best possible guns. You usually start with a rifle of some kind and maybe a bayonet but with some career points you could switch that to a pistol and two hand grenades for example. Switching between these load outs is also handy when you go from one phase of the battle to another. Rifles might be clumsy in close quarter combat and pistols are nearly worthless at a distance of 100+ meters.
The gameplay is mostly you running between your and the enemy's lines and while that might sound boring on paper, the actual experience is quite different. Verdun attempts to be as realistic as possible and thus a single bullet is often deadly. Reaching the enemy side or falling back to your trenches requires careful planning and plenty of taking risks and running through a storm of machine gun rounds and explosions is really thrilling. Even though you end up dying a lot it's still fun and exciting and finally jumping into the enemy trench feels rewarding.
The game also features a system to balance out the teams in case one team is missing players. If the teams are unbalanced the team with more players receives a score and spawn timer penalty, meaning that they receive less experience and it takes longer for them to respawn. For the most part this seems to balance out games where your team is missing one to three players. I doubt it would work out all that well if more people were to be missing but luckily servers seem to be quite packed most of the time.
Sadly the game does have its share of problems. While the gameplay certainly is fun and exciting, the game has a tendency to crash every once in a while. That coupled with the fact that you'll lose the experience points you've gained during a match if you disconnect before the round is over makes it really annoying. There is also a really weird bug which some people call “The Party Time” or “Ceasefire” where both teams lose the ability of doing damage with their weaponry for some time. I ran into this bug back in when the game was still in Early Access and it seems it has carried over to the full version as well. Luckily it's a quite rare bug and it seems to fix itself after a while.
What is not rare, however, is the bad performance the game has. Verdun is made in Unity3D and just like many other games using that engine, Verdun has hard time reaching 60 FPS. I remember the game running better in Early Access but now I have to drop all of the settings to low to keep the game running at 40-60 FPS. Considering that I have a relatively powerful GTX 760 I'd say the game requires plenty of optimization. So prepare to have to drop your settings quite a bit, Verdun won't be a game you'll max out unless you have a supercomputer of some sort available.
So even though the game is really good, it isn't perfect. I've had fun playing it and the community seems to be quite good for a multiplayer game but the performance and crashes were a bit of a bummer. Hopefully those can still be worked on and maybe we'll see the game work a lot better in the future. For now though, I'll give the game a cautious recommendation. If you want some variety in your multiplayer FPS games and are willing to put up with some crashes and a framerate that will probably be below your monitor's refresh rate, go for it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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4 comments
Its not really the dull aesthetic as to why im not purchasing. I cant quite put my finger on it but something about this seems a bit tasteless or at least trivialising the great war. Although the game doesn’t mock or gloryfy it Its still a competitive FPS based on a real event where millions died.
Still, Im not one to tell people what to buy or like. Im not interested in it though ... perhaps its just unity that makes me feel that way :P
Still, Im not one to tell people what to buy or like. Im not interested in it though ... perhaps its just unity that makes me feel that way :P
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Plintslîcho May 31, 2015
Good review. Thanks.
While I find the game somewhat interesting it always reminds me of Red Orchestra: Combined Arms and I don't see the point of spending money for a game that, in a way, I already own. Granted, no one is playing RO: Combined Arms anymore. But I'd rather fire Combined Arms up again than buying a very similar game.
While I find the game somewhat interesting it always reminds me of Red Orchestra: Combined Arms and I don't see the point of spending money for a game that, in a way, I already own. Granted, no one is playing RO: Combined Arms anymore. But I'd rather fire Combined Arms up again than buying a very similar game.
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Kurremkarmerruk May 31, 2015
Take away the WW1 setting and I'd still love this game for the awesome squad system (proximity buffs, squad-only voice chat, squad-leveling, specializations). I've always wanted a WW1 shooter but I've always wanted a squad-oriented shooter more. Verdun has both!
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Quoting: PlintslchoGood review. Thanks.
While I find the game somewhat interesting it always reminds me of Red Orchestra: Combined Arms and I don't see the point of spending money for a game that, in a way, I already own. Granted, no one is playing RO: Combined Arms anymore. But I'd rather fire Combined Arms up again than buying a very similar game.
It's not that similar to RO besides superficially. Yeah most rifles kill in one hit most of the time and yeah it's a team-based approach. But the actual feel to it is different. Verdun is a bit faster and the main gameplay mode feels different than ROs objectives. I'm a big fan of RO (both mod and subsequent games) and there's overlap in niche but Verdun stands on its own and does its own thing.
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