The newly released Firepower weapons pack has changed Shattered Horizon into an entirely different game.
Okay, so it’s still a shooter featuring teams of astronauts duking it out in the cold, dark void of space. And there are still the three gametypes of skirmish, assault and battle across eight maps, four of which were released in a previous free content pack (Moonrise).
Still, the new weapons and grenade types definitely alter the experience. The old all-in-one rifle is gone, with five selectable main weapons and three default sidearms coming in its place. This allows players to choose a much more clearly defined role, but also adds some welcome variation to these very mobile gunfights in space.
I’ve gotten a few hours in with the new weapons and will try to detail the experience thus far.
Most important to note is that a number of controls have been added and the HUD has seen some alterations. The ammo count is no longer displayed on the gun itself for instance, but in the bottom center of the HUD. This is also true of grenade types, with the launching of grenades now done via a grenade pistol sidearm rather than the main rifle.
On the topic of grenades, we see both three new grenades and some changes to grenade physics. The grenade pistol is automatically called up when pressing the grenade button, but doesn’t have nearly the range of the old rifle-mounted launcher. This has nerfed EMP grenades dramatically, which are now rarely used, because in most cases launching one merely results in EMPing yourself. I feel they took this nerf to grenade range a bit too far, although a nerf was called for.
The new grenade types add some great new functionality. Flare blinds anyone looking in its direction and is great for both offense and defense. Pulse grenades are my favorite new addition, providing a short scanning burst that detects all nearby lifeforms, including players using silent running. Lastly, Decoy does as its name implies. An orb of team-colored light that shows up on the enemy HUD, which can be great for feinting attacks or moving to a new position as a sniper.
The Flare is the most popular new grenade type
The grenade pistol is but one default sidearm that all players carry, with the moon mining axe and pistol rounding out the default weaponry. The moon mining axe replaces the melee function of the main rifle, with astronauts whipping them out for a quick stab upon pressing the melee button. Meanwhile the pistol is an entirely new addition, that adds some crazily accurate support fire for when your main rifles clip runs out in the middle of combat.
These main rifles come in five shapes and sizes, ranging from a deadly accurate and high powered sniper rifle, to a low damage SMG that spews bullets at a ridiculous rate. All of them are well-balanced and effective in their own right, although a majority of players does favor the assault rifle which functions much like a slimmed down version of the original all-in-0ne rifle.
The Sniper Rifle offers deadly accuracy and power, but with a low rate of fire. This is a much more stable sniper rifle than the sniping burst mode of the old main rifle, with shots at range requiring a mild lead similar to Bad Company 2. It’s even effective when flying, due to the improved stability of the gun and the lack of burst mode fire. An excellent and popular new addition.
The Assault Rifle is essentially the old rifle machine gun mode. It contains a decent amount of bullets per clip and offers good accuracy and rate of fire at relatively low damage. It’s a machine gun designed for medium-long range mobile combat, with mediocre recoil that can be countered rather easily even in flight.
The Machine Gun is the heavy duty counterpart of the Assault Rifle, with less damage, but greater ammo capacity, fire rate and recoil. You really need to be attached to a surface to use it effectively, although simply spraying bullets while in flight can net you a kill eventually. It’s not as popular as the Assault Rifle, mostly because it’s designed as a heavy duty defensive weapon and most players prefer more mobile play styles.
This is the allrounder Assault Rifle that functions much like the old rifle's automatic fire mode
The Shotgun is awesome, with heavy damage up close, but no accuracy for distance shots. It’s great for maps that feature a great quantity of indoor areas, but doesn’t suit open maps such as ISS very well. Yet even on those maps its an excellent weapon for both offense and defense in Assault or Battle game modes, because the crowded control point areas can quickly net you a lot of kills.
The last new addition comes in the form of the SMG. Out of the weapons in the Firepower pack, this is probably the least popular choice. It’s actually a very stable gun with an extremely high rate of fire and low damage output that is designed for use in mobile combat. However the combination of low accuracy and damage output makes for a gun that few players favor, despite its obvious advantages in mobile and close-range combat.
The result of all these new weapons is a game that plays decidedly differently from pre-patch Shattered Horizon. Every player now has a dedicated role, with snipers and machine gunners providing support fire for frontline SMG and shotgun players. Meanwhile Assault Rifle players roam around the map, providing support at range or frontline firepower whenever it is needed.
Of course it’s also possible to switch weapons upon respawning (F1 key!), which allows for quick loadout changes to adapt to an ever-changing battlefield. Yet balance is also maintained, with everyone carrying the same three sidearms and thus only the selection of a main gun serving as a distinguishing factor.
All weapons are displayed on person, so if someone is firing with their pistol then you can still see the sniper rifle strapped to their back and the grenade pistol and moon mining axe fixed in belt holsters. The weapons all come in entirely different shapes and sizes, which allows for first-glance recognition of what they’re carrying and whether you’re at an advantage or disadvantage.
Shattered Horizon remains absolutely gorgeous and still requires DirectX 10
There is unfortunately one sour note attached to this free update of an excellent multiplayer shooter: the new patch is causing major performance problems for a number of players. Players with 64-bit operating systems and 200-series Nvidia graphics cards (such as myself) are all reporting major framerate drops, even with low detail settings and in low resolutions.
Supposedly FutureMark is already aware of the issues and working to resolve them, but it still puts a bit of a damper on an otherwise excellent free content pack. I’m not sure whether owners of newer (or older) Nvidia cards are experiencing the same problems, but AMD users are definitely safe.
In celebration of the new free content pack, FutureMark has also reduced Shattered Horizon’s price to just 15 euro for the duration of this week. That’s a great deal for this excellent multiplayer shooter, provided you have a DirectX 10 capable PC and operating system.
See my vodcast for some high definition gameplay footage that was recorded prior to the release of this weapons pack.
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