NoTagGaming.com Forum: [NTG] Portal

Originally Posted at Infected Reviews - Plain Sight Review

Plain Sight

www.PlainSightGame.com



Updated section for Patch 1.2.0 [August 24/2010]

Overall Score : 94 /100


While browsing Steam the other day something caught my eye. It was a silver robot holding a ninja sword. The game is called Plain Sight. Another thing that made me actually look at this game was the fact that it was only ten dollars. I usually find that if a game is that cheap it's either really old (like ps2 cross over etc.) or just plain bad, which Plain Sight is neither of these. I HIGHLY suggest picking this game up, for 10 bucks and a little practice this game delivers hours of fun.

It's an indie game made by Beatnik Games based out of central London (yea I'd never heard of them either). Until lately I seem to have steered clear of indie games, not because I made a conscious choice to, I just never ended up being interested by them (except for on the Iphone).

So I picked it up and started playing it, and between this game and a few others I play on the computer, I haven't stopped. I don't think there is much of a real story to be found in this game so I will be focusing more on the game play, mechanics and controls for this review (because really, It's suicidal ninja robots, what more is there to know?)

Really I can't say I have played another game like this. There may be others that exist but I haven't encountered them, so this game to me is a really fresh idea in the sea of re-used and re-furbished ideas of the game industry.

I'll also be giving some tips on what I use to mess people up in game and the strategy I use for my upgrading. (Please note it does not mean you will be good at the game, just what I have found to be useful and successful for my play style.)

Let's begin.


Patch 1.2.0 Update Section -


K, so with the release of patch 1.2.0 the other day Plain Sight has been DRASTICALLY changed and more so for the better. What has been changed is that the star energy that drops throughout the levels no longer is the source of your random power-ups. Instead these are now bought through the "Pick Perks" section beside the server selection tab when going "Join Game". The perks that you used to get randomly can now be triggered (what I assume since I haven't timed it) every minute or so but be warned that when picking you have to pick so that you don't pick 2 or 3 of the same type of perk, example 2 explosion types will share the same cooldown so you basically waste one cooldown slot by doing so, just be mindful of what you pick. Below is the perks and what I use will be Colored. You gain points now through playing games to get the perks which you can then have up to 3 in any given game. They range from 50 to 150 points.

Shield - 50 Points

Regular "God Mode" shield for a little bit (30 seconds I believe) where the only thing that can touch you is Flame Sword and that just cancels out both. I use this when ever it is up.


Stealth - 50 Points

This makes you tiny and run around like a real ninja robot, although I'm not a fan of this as it always seems to make my hit to miss ratio go severely down. It does have it's uses by all means but not one I really use.

Break Lock - 50 Points

This perk allows you to break off people that are targeting you, a non verbal "GTFO" to those that would attack you.

Chain Detonation - 100 Points


Exactly as it says, the old chain reaction death, this makes anyone that gets caught in your explosion Instantly explode as well and anyone that touches that one also explodes etc and you get all the points and multipliers for it.

Flame Sword - 100 Points

This is a "Demi-God Mode" perk because while you can still be killed by a well placed attack it's hard to get those off because you're more than likely spam clicking attack. FS lets you do pretty much instant dash charges and you can't be challenged in terms of two people hitting each other at the same time, you will always win unless you hit a shield perk.

Vacuum Bomb - 100 Points

This lets you drop a mini black hole and you can suck and trap people around you in it and then explode, It's great fun unless you're one of the people getting sucked into it

Perk Void - 100 Points

Lets you setup a zone that no one can use perks in, can come in handy for taking out the shield and flame sword users.

Target Decoy - 150 Points
I haven't seen this in action yet, but I assume it just drops a decoy either behind you or gives you a free life that you can use when you feel like you're going to get shanked.



Mechanics –



Score: 95 /100


Points System and Multipliers–

One thing that was a shock to me personally when I started playing was the fact that killing other robots, DOES NOT gets you the points. Killing robots THEN exploding gets you the points and subsequently, upgrades. You can kill as many robots as you want, if you do not explode, you get no points and are more than likely not going to get very far on the score list. It's just one of the things that makes this game unique and so very interesting to me. Now the points are all based on Energy, which you get from 2 things. One is obviously, killing other robots while the second is (a possible way to get it as some servers disable it) collecting the golden stars that fall from the sky. Both are acceptable ways to get bigger and deadlier. Now say you have killed a few people and collected a star or two, you're sitting at 6 energy, now since you've killed 2-3 people, you should have the 2X kill multiplier meaning that if you explode right now you'd get 12 points total. But say you explode and another player tried to kill you and died in your explosion, now you've not only got your 2X kill multiplier but another 2X explosion multiplier on top of that. I usually find if you can get the 2X kill and then have at least 4 energy total and catch one person in your explosion (especially if it is at the start of a round) you can put yourself really far ahead of the competition and I'll explain why in the Upgrade section below.


Upgrade System-


I pretty much have to start out describing this to make some of the controls make a little more sense. This is definitely the fun part of Plain Sight. Every time you play, as you gain energy when you die or explode will get a chance to upgrade if you have enough points. These upgrades reset at the end of every round so if something didn't work for one round you can try to change and tweak it to find the style of play you need. Each section of each category has 3 upgrades you can upgrade to and when you upgrade all 3 of all 3 sections you can purchase the MEGA UPGRADE. Each sections 3 upgrades are just increases of the original so I won't bother with writing slightly, more and even more for them all.

There are three categories to choose upgrades from. There aren't actual titles in game for the sections, but this is what I would call them considering the attributes you get from each of them.


Ninja-

This is the Green and first category. In this category you can get:

-Run: Increase your run speed. Move faster each upgrade.

-Jump: Each upgrade gives you an extra jump, with a max of 3 in air jumps.

-Recovery: This helps you Recover from a block from a shield quicker. When you get blocked you get flung back and dazed, this helps get rid of the daze faster so you can attack back again.

Mega Upgrade – Performing a slam will jam nearby robots. (It messes up their controls and makes it easier to kill them.)

Protection –

This is the Blue and second category. In this category you can get:


-Shield: First upgrade gives you the use of a shield. Second and third upgrades make it last longer, as the longer you hold your shield the more it decreases and will have to be recharged.

-Shield Recharge: As it says, makes your shield recharge quicker. More points in this is less down time without a shield and can sometimes mean the difference between blocking and dying.

-Warning- This is basically a must for any Plain Sight player. This will put a big red Exclamation mark ( ! ) above your robot's head when someone has you locked on. One point gets you the exclamation, the second makes it fade in an out depending on the distance between you and your attacker. The third will actually point the mark in the direction your attacker is located.


Mega Upgrade – A super powerful shield. You'll be able to survive a Meltdown (explosion)


Assassin-

This is the Red and final category. In this category you can get:


-Detonate Speed: Each level will make your explosion happen faster, with the last upgrade making it happen instantly.

-Dash Charge: Each point will make your charge move charge faster so you can charge at people with full force, faster.

-Dash Power: This will make your charge hit harder and sometimes even go through shields.


Mega Upgrade – You will suck in enemies when you hold your meltdown (Risky but can get a lot of points if you do it right.)



Controls-


Score: 90/100

This game is really quite simple in nature but SO very easy to get in, get playing and plainly put, get hooked on. The controls consist of the following:

Left Mouse – Charge/Target - The way this works is you hold to charge up your attack. When you release it you'll go flying off towards either your lock-on target or whichever direction you're pointed in. The longer you hold, the farther and faster you will go. This is your main source of attacking as this is (besides collecting the energy stars which some servers have disabled) the ONLY way to get energy and kill multipliers.

Right Mouse – Shield (When upgraded) - Only active when you have purchased the Shield upgrade(s). This will activate your shield for however long you hold it, or however long your shield will last.

Spacebar – Jump or multiple jumps if you have the upgrades purchased.

Left Shift – STOMP. This is a very useful move, it takes time to master using it for evading and launching your own attack right after. This will essentially make your robot go feet first to the closest ground. This can be dangerous in some stages where the ground is not always wide as everything has gravity and you can float around a few times before touching down and get killed in the process.

E – This control is brought to you by EXPLOSIONS! This is your scoring button. There are many like it but this one is yours. Hit it when you feel you have enough points to collect, emergency or just to get that guy that is following you.


Game Modes


Score : 100/100


Beatnik was kind enough to add some really fun game modes to their game. Some of them don't get as much play time as they should but it is still a fairly new game and indie as well.

Death Match – Classic free for all. Try to get the highest score to represent your robotic ninja dominance.

Team Death Match – Death Match except you can't kill your team mates. Still try to assert your dominance in ninja robot killing by beating all your team mates and enemies scores.

Capture the Flag – Classic CTF except with robots, explosions and castles. Getting Energy to make your robot the biggest guy out there can be really good to help cover your team as they run the flag back, or even to run the flag yourself. When you pick up the flag in this mode you lose all extra jumps (only have the regular one jump you have off the start) till you capture or drop the flag.

Lighten Up – Make the biggest explosion you can on the lit up space, then make sure no one challenges by killing them to steal their energy.

Ninja! Ninja! Botzilla! – I've only seen this up a handful of times but it is a very fun and hard mode. One person is selected to be Botzilla a giant ninja robot with a dinosaur hat. You start out with a set amount of Energy, which in this context is more so how many hits you can take before you're destroyed. As Botzilla you're going to be going against other players that all want to wear your cool dinosaur hat, so watch out.


Maps-


Score : 90/100


With the game modes, the upgrades and explosions, there is also quite a few maps to choose from for your ninja stabbing pleasures. Some are more popular than others because as awesome as they all are, some of these maps are just to plain huge to get anything done. This is definitely an instance of bigger is not always better as it's mostly just the smaller scale maps that get played on the servers.


The Bad and Annoying –


Score: 0

Short of taking points off for making maps that are awesome and huge, for features that are currently implemented there isn't much to complain about. The controls are pretty straight forward and follow the, "Easy to learn, Hard to master" motto. I'd say graphics wise it's surprisingly good for an indie game, a lack of color on the robots themselves maybe but nothing major.


Tips –


*Note*Again, this is my own play style and is just a view on how I play, if you choose to use this style don't cry to me if it doesn't work right off the bat, it takes practice, even I die quite a bit doing it this way.

This is generally how I start my rounds. (THIS IS FOR LOW PLAYER COUNT GAMES)

1. Get two kills and explode and hope someone else jumps in on your explosion. If no one dies in your explosion you should still be ok points wise to pick up the first level of Warning.

2. Get enough points to max out your Detonate Speed. This makes it so when you are getting chased by someone and you can't get away, explode and teach them a lesson, if you've picked up some stars or got a few kills on your life, this can help get some good points as well as you are then guaranteed at least one 2X multiplier.

3. I like to be able to get a few jumps extra in the air as it helps to get an upper hand or reach people that have launched in to the air as well as propels you farther when you jump and let go of a charge. I usually like to get 2 upgrades of jump to start me off after Warning and maxing out Detonate Speed.

4. I usually then will start spreading the points between Dash Charge and Dash Power so you hit harder and faster.

5. Somewhere between steps 3 and 4 "sometimes" I will throw in an extra upgrade on Warning for distance as it comes in really handy for exploding people that are chasing you.

Anything after that I just toss them wherever except in shield. I am very anti shield in my play style.

THIS IS FOR HIGHER PLAYER COUNTS

1. Get Warning Level 1 ASAP

2. Get Dash Charge to level 3 ASAP

3. Get a few kills if possible and then RUN AWAY to explode as you will have the full explosion time and not instant yet.

4. Get Explosion Time to level 3 ASAP

5. Try to Win.


*Disclaimer*
This review is from the site www.InfectedReviews.com If you like it head over and read more reviews.