For those of you that don’t know there is an upcoming free-to-play game due to be released on Xbox One and Windows 10 called Gigantic, and I just recently got a chance to try out the beta for the game on Xbox over the weekend. But first, let’s describe what the game is for those of you that aren’t familiar with the game:
The game is a team-based third-person shooter where each team has a very large guardian you have to protect as you are working your way through the map, you and your team will try to capture certain points on the map that will help you control the battlefield until you get towards the end and the two guardians Clash, and you try to destroy the enemy guardian all while defending your own. Whichever team’s guardian is left standing wins the game.
Here were some of my first impressions of the game. Visually the game was very cartoonish in a way that I’d compare the art to being similar to Disney Infinity. The range of colors in the game was fantastic. And I really enjoyed the look of each map, character, and guardian that I came across during my time with the beta. The maps were designed in a way that it’s obvious which direction to go to get back into the action.
I thought the controls were very intuitive, some of the most complex abilities that you could do took me a minute or two to get the hang of but once you do, it just feels natural in your hand. One of the elements of the game that I enjoyed was the ability to summon your own creatures at certain parts in the game to assist you and you can level up and evolve them in a way to make them more effective.
Now in regards to individual players, you get to play as one of sixteen characters to choose from each with their own abilities that you’re able to level it up with the games progression system. With the sixteen characters, they’re really broken down into five different playstyles: everything from frontline to long-range and everything in between. The character that I really enjoyed the most was a long-range sharpshooter named Beckett.
Now, whether you win or lose you get rewarded with in-game currency to be able to “buy” new characters, which I think is really smart to keep players coming back to unlock the characters that they want to play as. And I’m sure that they will include a way to buy this in-game currency with real world money to help you unlock the new characters just that much faster.
One of the minor things that I really enjoyed was how easy to understand and follow the instructions for the tutorial were. Some games can be really confusing at first, and I really have to hand it to the developers for coming up with such a simple, yet helpful approach to new players of the game.
Now, some of my complaints with the game, one small thing that I’d like to see added to the game before launch is vibration in the controllers, most games we play these days include this to give you that sense of immersion in the game, that I felt like was missing to make this a little bit more of a complete experience.
The next complaint is a little bit bigger and maybe it’s just me that thinks this, but, I felt like while the game was fun it wasn’t quite as addicting as I thought that it would be. Now, to be fair, I didn’t get to play as much of the game as I would’ve liked and it did have mechanics and progression systems that I feel will be easy for new players to pick up and enjoy. And I think that this game will truly be enjoyed by teams composed of friends with headsets. Especially with sixteen different characters each with their own abilities will give players the ability to create many unique teams.
But, even with the small complaints that I had for the game, I feel that this game has the potential to be something truly special, another thing that this game has going for it is that it’s free. And the gameplay itself is solid, while not perfect, it was a fun game. And down the road who knows, we could see DLC characters or even a Gigantic sequel.
I really am looking forward to this game coming out, and seeing what others think of the game, and see just how far we can push the leveling systems with the characters. For those of you who also got a chance to play the beta over the weekend, what did you think of the game? What changes would you like to see implemented before the game launches? Please post your thoughts in the comments below!