War World - Tactical Combat (PC)

Giant robot is boy's true romance. So today we looking at the game about giant robot: Third Wave's War World - Tactical Combat (2006). 

You want giant robots? The game straight shows you 2 of them right in the title screen! They're like unused cast for Pacific Rim in my opinion. As opposed to giant robot, the font is tiny. I know the game boast about the giant robot. But font also important. I try to check the address www.warworld.net and it takes me to site with picture of World War 1 documentary with unreadable letters/alphabets. So i assume the real website is long gone. Playing an online game from dead website, what could possibly go wrong? [Foreshadowing Sarcasm]

There's not much transition when i go to control option. No new screen whatsoever. What's worse is the default control requires Num keys! As you know that all laptops or at least most of them, don't have Num keys, probably for compactness sake. But fret not! I can reconfigure the buttons while i'm still here.      

 

Without too much thinking, i go for Arcade game which is single-player mode basically. I tested this game before and finished 2 levels so i can choose the level up to 3rd but let's restart at first stage and i set the difficulty to Normal. Sniper_battlecry01.wav

 

Here's the customization screen and here's your default robot. It's green and armed with Gatling Gun on each hand. I can do equipment customization but i left it at default for now because my budget still at the lowest because i start at first level. But i do want to change the color via that RGB slider. I don't want my robot looks too generic. I like purple and you can't tell me not to paint my robot purple! 

I like that the selected equipment is spinning on display. It's amusing to see.

 

Here's the first stage. It looks like taken from Serious Sam stage what's with desert setting. As in default control setting. I move around with W,A,S, and D button. Left mouse button to fire my weapon on left arm. Right mouse button to fire my weapon on right arm. As opposed to how the robots look, surprisingly they move quite fast and smoothly. Not sluggish at all.

 

This first opponent is easy. I just unload all of my Gatling gun on him while moving and he's down quickly. Even with my relatively low accuracy.

Note: I have to increase mouse sensitivity from 2.5 (default) to 5. It feels better that way.

 

Other thing that i can customize besides weapon on each arm is equipment on the back. There's 4 of them. They're Missile Launcher, Jet Thruster, Mortar, and Mine Launcher. The 2 on latter are in the same category so i can only have one of them at the time. There's also equipment category called "system" which only energy shield that makes the robot invincible momentarily.

Everytime i finish a level, i get 3,000 credit. But that's not enough to warrant me any weapon on my robot's back. Thus i unwillingly leave my robot not upgraded until i have more money.  

 

What's that spinning rocket/missile item there. It makes sounds when i pick it up but there's no helpful message that inform me what i just pick or what it does.

 

I can see my enemy's health bar but only if i can hit him though.

Suddenly...

 

Shocking! There's more than one enemy in this level! Also that transportation aircraft provides my enemy with fire support. That's cheating!    

 

Forsooth! They got me. I took big wound from that blasted transportation aircraft and i have to fight 2 enemies at once now! It will be nice if there's health pickup. I mean there's but only dropped from dead robot like you can see i spawn one as my robot explodes glamorously into pieces. What's with red cross icon? Is that medkit? Do robots in these War World universe requires bandages and Isopropyl alcohol to fix themselves up? What the hell!

 

Fine! I will use some of the budget to replace one of my Gatling Gun with Laser Gun. I hope it will works wonderfully. The customization is pretty easy. You don't need to sell the previous equipment to replace it. The money work in this customization is bit weird but handy. The money work more like limit value than usual currency. You can just install new equipment whatever you want as long as the credit doesn't go to negative value. The game won't accept your customization and allow you to play next level if the credit is negative value.    

 

More items that i pickup but the game doesn't tell me what they do. Ok. I find out that this grey box near me will replenish my Gatling Gun ammo. Now, which item that replenish my Laser Gun ammo?

 

If the enemy transport, i should hide and wait until it flies away.

Oh. I see! The enemy have laser gun like me. It has much slower rate of fire than Gatling Gun but it deals hefty damage if hit. It's more like sniper's weapon than frontal assault weapon. It also has smaller ammo capacity.

 

Engineer_negativevocalization11.wav. I die, again! But i think i did better this time. Maybe.

 

Look how little damage that i do with my laser gun! I really hate enemy's transport ship.

 

Die, again! But at least i know that those battery pack near medkit is laser gun ammo.

 

I almost have him until he activates the invincible shield. Oh, come on! Take my bullets like real robot pilot! Eventually, it dissipates and i can kill him. Finally win! Cm_engie_matchwon_03.mp3

On 3rd level, i can dispatch the first 2 robots armed with Gatling Gun with next to no problem. But then next pair of robots armed with Laser Gun and they cut my health like hot knife cut through butter. My defeat is mathematically makes sense. They have 4 Laser Guns while i only have one for balance reason. I still keep my Gatling Gun for  frontal assault or finish off enemies with small health. Their Laser Gun's fire rate is 4 times faster than mine. That's definitely imbalanced.

After more several defeats...

 

Grrr. Fine! I replace the old Gatling Gun with stronger ones. Let's see if the enemies like it or not!

 

It seems this new Gatling Gun can flays enemy's health twice faster than the old ones and it feels dramatically better. I don't need to be more accurate with my Laser Gun anymore. I can or rather i must rush in to those laser gun robots with my new stronger Gatling Gun. But i did fire my Laser Gun once in a while which feels redundant thing to do.

 

I reckon i need to replace my robot with more durable one. But it's slower and jump lower by 2. Now my robot looks like from Neon Genesis Evangelion or those lesser mindless robot of Decepticon's.

 

I finished the 4th level with no problem. Maybe thanks to my new robot here. I think the 3,000 credit reward for every level finished feels like too low for me. I prefer more or bigger reward from each previous level. 

I said i like purple but i don't want my robot associated with Decepticon so i change my robot to brown. It looks rusty but at least not evil. Maybe i should go for bronze color but it requires more complicated setting. Or this color is bronze enough, i think.

By the way, check out my new laser gun here. It's called SlaughterBeam! Heavy_specialweapon04.wav

 

This is freaking bad! In 5th level, i have to fight this overpowered robot. He has stronger robot and weaponry. Plus he's armed with missile launcher. My health goes down to 50% in seconds while his only damaged by 10% or 15%.

 

He also has stronger shield than other enemies so far. What am i supposed to do to defeat him?

After more defeats...

 

Change of plan. I'm going back to my weak robot and equip it with one weapon only but stronger than ever. This Laser Gun looks like Plasma Rifle in Halo. :P

 

Arrrrgh! I was so close defeating him. DX

After dozen more defeats...

 

I hate to repeat myself but how am i supposed to win this? Seriously! I can't win by sniping him from afar. He has stronger Laser Gun and Robot also he has more accuracy aim than me. No matter what combination of my customization, i can't defeat him ever. I notice if i constantly side run, his aggressiveness is lowered but my accuracy also lower. Closing him is certainly awful idea because his Gatling Gun is so powerful that i won't survive more than 4 seconds when near him. I try using shield but i discover that i can't fire any of my weapon when it's turned on. It makes sense for balancing reason. But this is not balance situation already! It seems his customization budget is thrice bigger than mine.

I assume this is unbeatable final boss and i quit. Maybe i can turn down the difficulty but i have better things to do...  

 

...which is checking the multiplayer mode which i hope is better way to play the game than that Single Player mode.

It seems the multiplayer mode is quite decent. The game modes are: Capture The Flag, Deathmatch, and Bomb Assault! That sounds interesting but let's go for the olde classic Capture The Flag for quick play.

 

It's payback time for that moment when i'm bombarded with missile by that 5th level boss. That's what i want to say but apparently my missiles are not as accurate as i witnessed from that 5th level and i died many times before i successfully defeat this bot for once. Oh, i see. I can launch 2 missiles at the time instead of just once. It's like Armor Alley all over again.

 

This time i want to check the mortar. It travels faster than missiles but it doesn't homing on enemy. Hey, enemy bot also has mortar. I just realized that enemy's bot will 100% copy my robot setup plus it always has shield. What most baffling to me is there's only one bot! I want bots for all available player slots like Terminator 3 - War of The Machines! . The game is less fun by the passing time. I'm quit! For real, this time. I even uninstalled the game this instance.

 

Here's some animated demonstration. For free!

No doubt that Third Wave's War World - Tactical Combat (2006) looks gorgeous and nice. However the gameplay is tedious and sluggish. I learn that in a hard way. Also too late. Imagine you play Team Fortress 2 and all of the players are Heavy. That's pretty similar experience to this game. The combat goes down to "Damage race" between you and your enemy. There's no real tactical mean on the combat so the subtitle is misleading. The thing closest to tactical is the sub-weapon (e.g. mine, missile). Perhaps the "stealth" ability can be counted as Tactical. However it's not what you probably think. It's not like Team Fortress 2 Spy's ability to turn invisible so you can sneak into enemy's line. No. How it works: with a press of "stealth" button, you aren't detected in enemy's radar but at the cost of inability to read your radar while in "stealth" mode. I don't think it's useful against bot. I think the HUD is too small. Perhaps that's intended so your view isn't obstructed unnecessarily but the HUD is too small in practice. The absence of informative message also bothers me. At least tell me what's the function of item that i just pick. Dammit! The full yet monotonous customization is also a problem. It disavows the robots from distinctive classification. They're all stuck with Gatling or Laser Gun and sub-weapons. More variety on main weapon will nice and nigh mandatory, such as: shotgun, Rail gun (that act like sniper weapon), or melee weapon. The higher quality main weapon only serve as stronger version of the lower quality weapon. It's boring upgrade. The robot's variation perhaps slightly better. The more expensive robot is bigger and has more health but slower and jump smaller. But even the weakest robot can take so many Gatling Gun's bullets before going down. The hit detection maybe good except for Laser Gun. Perhaps that's the matter of my skill issue. As i said before that the graphic is wonderful. The presentation also beautiful. The map and everything are great. But the HUD could be bigger by twice. The sound effect is average good.

I know that giant robot is boy's romance but i have to disavow War World - Tactical Combat (2006) from my recommendation because how aggravating it is to play. The single player mode is not finesse and the ai bot only for 1 slot. There's spiritual successor of this game called War Robots by Pixonic. It's available for smartphone/tablet PC and available on Steam. It has better gameplay but with clunky robots. Also be aware that there's micro transaction elements on it. Whether you choose this game or War Robots is up to you. Anyway. Get in the robot, reader!