(Impressions) Holodrive
Do you remember when crazy-fast shooters were a thing, not some “retro-inspired, trying to resurrect the glory days” remake? Well I do. Holodrive does a great job bringing shooting back to its roots (which is impressive given the design choice). I get a Quake vibe from this 2D almost “twin-stick” game. Holodrive is quick and has a lot of weapon variety that makes for some very fun (if not overly dramatic) gun fights. I’ve still not quite settled on a favorite weapon, but then again, I haven’t unlocked all of them yet. Who knows, maybe I’ll unlock a variant that I haven’t had the chance to fall in love with yet. Judging by other players’ arsenals, there may not be too many more that inspires leaving the basic guns. I see a lot of players use with the basic weapons currently, but I’d love to come across some wicked looking gun that would drive me to figure out how to unlock it. Unlocking them all will happen eventually I guess. As it stands, I like my faithful rocket launcher and the funky orange fire-laser thing that bounces off walls and ceilings (the Raygun). I like flashy things; what can I say? Oh, and the Mini-gun. Yeh, that one’s a hoot too!
Moving around and aiming is smooth and easy. That is if I’m using a mouse and keyboard. I really wanted to treat Holodrive like a twin-stick shooter and play with my gamepad, but that proved to be a bit too difficult for me. Maybe if I was more used to playing shooters on consoles, but that is not my preferred mode of play. If a shooter comes out on a console, chances are I would not play it any time soon. Once I made the switch, I was having way more fun because I’m more accurate with my mouse. That’s not to say I’m winning a lot, but I at least don’t always end with a negative k/d ratio. We should be able to admit that while winning isn’t everything, it’s more enjoyable. Now if I could only remember to use the power-ups I pickup every now and then… You think I would remember to use a shield or invisibility.
While the aesthetic may be fun, getting new costumes are cool and the explosive weaponry is fun, I have to admit that I may have hit a wall with the current build. Fun aesthetics can only carry a game so far. Sometimes I’ll have a great match with some great back and forth action. However, more recently I run into players that have better mastered the game than myself. There is a small player base currently and without more players, you can’t solve the problem without some form of ranked system. With full 4v4 teams and a ranking system, I would hopefully have more matches that would have me often standing on an even playing field. As it stands, there is usually one or two people in a match of three to four total that dominate everyone. This doesn’t ruin the game for me and I can’t rightfully rage at this because it’s still in development and balancing your game is part of process. The game should be a ton more fun when it launches because they’ve indicated that they plan on putting a ranking system in the game. Also when it launches at the price of free, there should be more players coming in.
So the game will be a free-to-play with mirco-transactions to help support the developer. I can dig this. Free will open the floodgates so that there will be more people to frag. This can only be a boon to this style of game. Some people don’t like the FTP model, but for a game dependent on multiplayer, can you honestly blame them and or think of another way to collect more people quicker? More people will mean shorter match wait times. Anyone who’s played Ghost Recon Online/Phantoms can attest to long wait times sucking. Once people who like this style of game give Holodrive a chance, I’m sure we’ll have a large player base because of how fun and well made this game is. Hopefully I can get a decent amount of my buds to jump on this train when it finally leaves the station. I think it’d be cool to play a game in this crazy-style with some of the buds I used to frag with. I may even try to stream some of this so we can save our lack of skill for posterity and fun.
More Holodrive info: Facebook / Official Page / Steam / Twitter
