Developer: Human Head Studios
Publisher: Atari
Platforms: PC
Minimum – Review
Minimum is a minimalistic third-person shooter brought to us by Atari and Human Head Studios. In the preview I’ve mentioned that the game looks fantastic and it plays well. After all these months, I still agree to that. The game is visually refreshing, even if it is as unrealistic as it can get and the gameplay delivers some fun fast-paced matches. However, I also stated that the game can only become better and in a way it has but there are also many downsides to the launch of Minimum.
Story
Minimum is a multiplayer shooter without any campaign or story mode. Therefore it has no storyline. You could argue that the Titan mode has a storyline since you are powering up the titans so that they may destroy the opponent’s walls and eventually its power source. Thing is, we don’t know where exactly the titans nor the creepers came from so really, there’s no story or background story at all.
Graphics
In the preview I didn’t mention much about the graphics and I doubt that I really can since the graphics are as minimalistic as they can get. Everything is made out of blocks and is colored in neutral colors. The armor-pieces which you can craft during games are more colorful than most of the elements in the game. The effects however are quite bright compared to the overall game. Bright blue orbs serve as a power-up for your weapons. Then there’s pink and yellow stones which are resources once picked up. When you’ve powered up your weapons, they will have a rather bright glow to them as well. The swords will have a variation of bright colors, making you and your opponent’s quite easy to spot. All-in-all, the graphics in Minimum certainly have its charm.
Sound
The sound in Minimum is obviously rather minimalistic as well. You can distinctively make out the “Swoosh” when you’re twirling around with your swords while the shooting sound is dependent on what type of weapon you are using. The grenade launcher sounds a lot more heavier than the regular sniper rifle as it should. The sound design does not feel as important as the visual design of the game and it is certainly not as important as the fast-paced gameplay.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Minimum is a simple fast-paced action gameplay. You aim, you shoot and hopefully you’ve annihilated the opponent. Sword-wielding is actually a lot more fun than any of the weapons you can choose from but the swords also tend to be more overpowered when they have reached the maximum level. Leveling up a weapon can be done by simply picking up the blue energy orbs that have dropped from opponents. Downside to these energy orbs is that any player can pick these up, regardless of if they killed the opponent or not. A good strategy would be ninja’ing as many blue orbs as you can but then again, you would be throwing dirt in your teammates direction.
Each weapon, whether it is a gun or a katana, will have a secondary ability attached to them. These abilities can range from jumping higher to dashing to a burst-fire mode. A major part of the gameplay is the crafting of armor. Every time you have successfully killed an opponent, they will drop resources which you will need to craft your armor pieces. These armor pieces, as already stated in the preview, will give the player certain sets of boosts in stats but there are also cons to them. Choosing your armor wisely is a well needed strategy in the game as certain types of armor tend to be overpowered when they’ve reached their maximum level.
When I previewed the game, there was only one mode available with two maps. Now there are two additional modes available: Team Deathmatch and Horde mode. The latter one is a survival mode where you need to survive incoming waves of dinosaurs, ninja’s, samurai’s and even astronauts. Both modes are equally fun and I have grown fond of the Horde mode, even if the waves are extremely vicious. Surviving the third wave is almost never done because of the extremely aggressive and strong opponents you are facing. However, I have also noticed that the Horde mode does not give the player experience which is yet another downside of the game. There are also additional maps such as a space map, a jungle themed map and even a samurai themed map but most of these maps are not as minimalistic as the previous ones. However, the maps are still brilliant and well designed.
As of lately, there’s also a shop in-game where you can buy skins which are cosmetic for the most part. While it is not necessarily pay-to-win, it does have the possibility to give people a rather great advantage since they can buy their armor types which they would normally need to grind resources for. Obviously, the game still requires a great deal of skill and some luck here and there but having access to all armor-types while another person has access to one armor-type is still a minor pay-to-win situation to me.
While I am in love with the concept of the game and the execution of it for the most part, there is another reason beside the minor degree of it being pay-to-win as to why I am giving it a lower score than I had originally intended. The game has been in Early Access and there were many options that were still under construction, which is understandable in Early Access. However the game is now released as a full game, yet it still has options which are under construction. As soon as you launch the game, you are met with the daily missions which are “coming soon”, however this was the deal back in May as well. If these features weren’t so openly missing, it wouldn’t come across like they have failed to deliver. To top it off, the friend invite still gives plenty of errors.
Conclusion
As I previously mentioned, I’m in love with the minimalistic concept of Minimum and the execution of it has been almost flawless during the Early Access. The visuals are so down-sized that it will remind players of games such as Minecraft and Blockstorm, which is also a shooter on Minecraft steroids. This is not necessarily a bad thing as you can now purely focus on the fast-paced gameplay. Minimum has a lot of potential and with all the plans they had going for the game, it was going in a positive direction. However as they have released the game with plenty of features still missing, I cannot help but feel like they’ve failed to deliver what they had initially promised and this is rather disappointing.
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