Gigantic, that’s what this game seems like it has the potential to be. After the load screen it brings you to the tutorial right away, no joke, you’re going in. Picture the graphics of Legend of Zelda Wind Walker, MOBA gameplay and throw in some FPS sensibilities, and you’ll have the base layer of Gigantic, and we’re just getting warmed up.
Tutorial: Beckett Wrecks The Noob Computer
I started the tutorial off playing with the Tactical Shooter, Beckett. to be honest he’s pretty cool. He’s reminiscent of League of Legends’ Jinx with an ultimate move that comes from the sky instead of across the map. Naturally with any game that is third or first person you have to be able to go up and down vertically, so I was pretty stoked to find out he has a jetpack. So this friendly little guy with the cool goggles has:
Machine Pistols + Cannon / Switches out with LB
Grenades
Jetpack
Airstrike
The tutorial brings you into the arena on your AWESOME airship, no big deal, to battle against the opposing guardian. The map is pretty unique from what I have played, it’s a valley with a little cave like structure in the middle and the big bosses are on either end. Now here’s the fun part, there are three capture points in the middle, each one you take over and put a little creature (which you can upgrade) to hold the point and keep your teams control of the area. So I followed the rules, for the most part, and the nice lady in the tutorial had some friendly banter which was nice. We trekked along and set up our creatures;
Cerberus Majoris ”“ Set this little guy by my guardian, he pretty much was just my cool guard dog.
Summer Bloomer ”“ This was my mid map Groot, healing me and stuff.
Mountain Cyclops ”“ Whenever I pushed into their territory I would plop this guy in for that siege style set up. However, the lady in the tutorial didn’t seem too pleased about the idea so I think I’ll reconsider.
Now to win this dastardly battle you have to go in and “steal” the guardians power, by shooting his glowing hands which are his hearts from what I gathered. Once you knock those out he’ll lose his focus and your big homie guardian is going to come in and pin that serpent, wrestling tyle. Then you pretty much get to blast him in the face if their guardian isn’t around and that will be strike one. I say strike one because you get to repeat the process two more times, but only when your guardian is ready.
Alright, we’re about to go check out actual gameplay so I’ll be right back.
Well I’ve played a total of two online matches and I look forward to many more, it just might take a little while. Gigantic is still in closed beta, so it doesn’t have a huge number of players. To be honest we can’t really complain about a 3 minute queue time, but I imagine it will be pretty quick once they’re all the way online.
Lets knock the qualms out of the way before we get into how awesome it is. The interface leaves a bit to be desired, instead of the pause menu brining up quick options it simply shows the controls, no matter where you are.
The game still feels a little empty, there are about 14 characters but it seems like there is room for a lot more.
XBox lacks a voice server for use in game. This bodes well for the PC version.
The Margrave
The first match I did fantastic. I completely fulfilled my tank role and kept the team rolling on the objective. It’s still a little odd to upgrade abilities on a console but the system is easy to use as long as you don’t try to click through too fast. We established our footing early game and pushed our Guardian forward to bring honor to our house! Because of Margrave’s Leap ability and the power up allowing me to stun enemies when I landed it turned out to be a fantastic CC for my ranged companions. All in all we decimated the enemy team in an efficient manner.
The second match wasn’t pretty. I think I still did better than would be expected of a super noob, but the lack of communication really threw our match into the worst case scenario. Our opponents continuously pushed behind our front line and drew power from our Guardian so their could push forward. It turned out to be about a fifteen minute match, which seemed totally acceptable to me. I’m interested to see if they’ll bring in different maps / game modes but so far it is definitely a cool game and I’m excited to see where they head!
I’d recommend Gigantic to my friends and I look forward to playing more, with some other friends that got on the beta to be able to communicate. Get the game as soon as you can to see how Gigantic feels to you.