Review: Shattered Horizon (PC)

Shattered Horizon is a multiplayer first person shooter from the maker of the popular PCMark and 3DMark benchmarking programs. This is a rather brave foray into a somewhat swamped market made even more daring given the fact that it is a DirectX 10 only game, meaning if you don't have the compatible hardware you won't be able to play the game. Of course if you have purchased any graphics card in the last three years you should have that capability and needn't worry, although the recommended specifications are rather high.

The main menu screen in Shattered Horizon has been kept as simple as possible, allowing you to change the usual options (sound and visuals) and jump straight into picking a dedicated server for up to 32 players. At this point you can pick your favourite maps or see if one of your friends from the Steam network is online and wants to blast the odd Major Tom into the emptiness with you.

When you first jump into the game, the most frequent occurrence is your blood leaving your body like champagne from a bottle - avoiding being shot is a steep learning curve because of the zero gravity setting.

There are only four maps and they are all set in space above Earth, where a mining accident has thrown billions of tonnes of rock from the moon into orbit around the earth. The remaining Earth forces fight the money grabbing mining corporation that caused this reckless disaster for the scant supplies that allow them to live that little bit longer.

It all looks rather nice, if a bit samey at times but once you get used to the intuitive controls and start to rack up some kills of your own, the finer points of the game slowly filter through to you along with generous helpings of hair pulling frustration. You only have one gun in your arsenal and will have to use it wisely, blasting from the hip whilst flying through the void or peering down the scope with your feet magnetically fixed to a larger object than yourself, allowing you to fire off a powerful burst at some poor unsuspecting spacesuit wearing foe. Trying a sniper shot in freefall will just spin you around, making you look and feel silly.

To aid you in your quest for domination you have three types of grenades:

A silent running mode allows you to float unseen by other combatants suits' targeting/tracking systems by shutting most of your functions down, allowing for a close melee kill if you are lucky enough to not have the target turn around or fly off into the 360 degree environment before you get to them. This also affects the sound since it is simulated by the suit (you would hear nothing in the cold vacuum of space) and all you hear is your heartbeat and breathing which is a nice touch.

The three combat modes on offer have little in the way of variation. Two of them are basic capture the control point games whilst the last is a simple death match affair which I much preferred to the other two.

There is a definite 'just one more go' appeal to Shattered Horizon, depending on the map you are on at the time, and if you stick with it you may well see yourself rising slowly in the points department, leading to some very tricky to earn achievements. For me though, it felt like a demo of a game rather than the real thing. Four maps if truth be told isn't enough content to warrant a purchase unless you really need that multiplayer fix and have sickened yourself of your other multiplayer games.

Pricing aside (it's not an expensive purchase) Shattered Horizon is a good attempt at something a little bit different that, over time, could be improved upon greatly with more content. The core gameplay is fast and furious enough to keep it alive if more variety is added and I know I will pick it up again at some time in the future.