WorldShift Impressions

WorldShift smoothly blends a core sci-fi fantasy RTS experience with a cooperative MMO twist.

The year is... well, I don't know what year WorldShift takes place in, but it is the distant future. A massive asteroid known as Shard Zero smashed into Earth sometime in the 21st centurion and now, thousands of years later, human kind has been split into two different factions. One faction, despite the earth-shattering damage to the planet, was able to rebuild and now thrive on high technology. The other faction is the complete opposite, mutated by the Shard's plague and living in tribes that rely heavily on magic. The third faction is the Shard Zero alien race, which thrives on Earth's now plagued atmosphere to survive.

The first thing I noticed about WorldShift were the lusciously colorful graphics. I was shown a plush jungle wetlands filled with foliage and vibrant colors, almost as vibrant as the mutant creatures that inhabit the land.

WorldShift features the most unique and captivating character design I've seen since StarCraft. Each type of unit is easily distinguishable from the next, and zooming in on any particular unit will reveal the finite type of detail you'd only expect from a Todd MacFarlane sculpture.

WorldShift offers many different play modes to suite all types of RTS players. The epic campaign mode offers 18 non-linear and replayable levels with tons of random item drops. Player vs. Player mode requires no base building or resource management, and no match is ever the same thanks to WorldShift's random-generated environments.

And the best mode of them all, where the MMO twist finally enters the story, is cooperative dungeon mode. In coop, up to three players form a team to enter a dungeon instance and pillage every last goodie. Coop is played much differently than the single-player epic campaign as enemy mobs are much stronger and must be pulled tactically like in most MMOs. But they also wield the best loot.

Player rank and ability are persistent across all modes. And when entering a PvP or coop multiplayer game, players will be matched by a global skill level to keep things fair.

Like any other RTS game, WorldShift features hundreds of armor sets, items, and weapons per race. Unlike many RTS games, however, WorldShift replaces the familiar skill tree with relics that can be applied to particular unit groups to boost attack power or health for example.

If you're stuck between a rock and a hard place for RTS games to play later this year, or just want to try out a new twist on the genre then WorldShift is the perfect match. Developer Black Seas Studios have something very unique here and RTS fans should take notice.

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