Developer: Nine Dots Studio
Publisher: Bandai Namco Games Europe
Platforms: PC
GoD Factory: Wingmen – Review
GoD Factory: Wingmen is a rather ambitious project for the Canadian developers of Nine Dots Studio. The game is a mixture of slightly anything that can be mixed – a squad-team based and a rather competitive space combat simulator where attacking and defending should be equally performed.
Story
While there are four playable species available in GoD Factory: Wingmen, there is no storyline to be found. As there are more species in the universe of GoD Factory than these four, there should be enough content available that can be wrapped up in a neat little storyline that can ultimately serve as the backbone of the entire game – the reason why we are at war. However, this part is completely left untouched.
Graphics
The creativity in the visual design can certainly be seen as the entire game is clearly futuristic, which goes hand in hand with the overall atmosphere they are trying to create. The fictional space you can find yourself in is beautifully crafted with a nice variation of colors, planets and pieces of scraps that you can find in outer space.
The spaceships are equally well crafted and they are completely customizable with more than thousands parts to tinker with. As there are four species, there are four different spaceships available and each ship design is completely different than the others thus providing the players with unique battleships never to be seen before – each having their own futuristic take.
You can’t really tinker with the settings as there are not that many options available but something that has almost become a necessity in video games is the fullscreen or windowed modes. Both are available in the game but it does lack the fullscreen windowed mode which is a mode that I prefer to play with.
Sound
The sound design is kept fairly simple with non-invasive music that still remains to be quite catchy when playing the game. As the music is rather subtle, it sets the perfect atmosphere in space. However, I do miss some voice-acting in the game that would make it feel like a true space simulation game. The sound effects themselves yet again fit perfectly in the entire space theme the game has going and each type of weaponry has its own specific kind of effect which remains to be subtle as well.
Gameplay
The gameplay is great overall but personally I find the movement-system a tad unnerving. It is not your typical WASD for moving around. It is a mixture of WASD keys with boosts and 90, 180 and 360 degree turns, combined with your moving your move. Since you are in space, you are supposed to be able to flip your battleship in every possible way but this made me somewhat nauseous. You will get used to the movement system after a while but I continued to find it irritating but many players will not have that issue so I am not going to dwell on this part. The loading times in the game are also slightly disturbing if not a slight annoyance. In fact, the loading times will be a reason for some to simply hop around in lobby’s or just quit the game. You can somewhat avoid the extreme loading times by creating a private match where you play against bots but as it is a multiplayer game, this feels uncalled for.
The rest of the gameplay is straightforward, you need to work closely with your team to destroy the enemy’s carrier ship while also defending your own ship. Destroying the enemy’s carrier ship can be done by simply destroying parts of the ship. Every carrier ship has seven integrity points – destroying one part will make the enemy lose one point. If both teams are heavily defending their ships it will be hard to destroy a part. However, once in a while the carrier ships will fire their cannons causing the enemy’s carrier ship to lose one point as well. You can use this to your own advantage, especially if your team excels in defending but cannot get through the enemy’s defenses. All-in-all, the matches last for about twenty to thirty minutes but some can be shorter in length – again this purely depends on your team. Instead of using just one ship, you will have two ships available for battle. You can use multiple tactics here by rotating the ships. Additionally you can also borrow a ship from your team members but this will mean that they cannot go to battle if the ship they are using has been blasted into little tiny space scrap pieces.
As I mentioned before you can customize your ships by buying parts in the shop and equipping them in the hangar. The currency that they are using here is simply called ‘Credits’ which lacks the creativity we found elsewhere. These credits can be earned by completing the tutorials, this will yield you about 10.000 credits. More credits can be rewarded by unlocking achievements and the rest of the credits can be earned by simply finishing matches. As there are twelve different kinds of parts for your ships, there is enough variation for the player to be comfortable with. However, you cannot simply grind for credits and then spend it all in the shop because there are level restrictions added to several of the items. This brings me to the progression system in the game. First off, there is the pilot rank – increasing this rank will unlock new parts for you to buy. There’s also a ranking system for the parts themselves, namely the parts’ Mark – increasing this rank can only be done by spending mastery points which you will receive after finishing battles. Keep in mind that this is said in a simple way because the leveling system is far more complicated and larger than this.
Conclusion
In its entirety, GoD Factory: Wingmen is a fantastic game both visually and auditory. An actual backbone of the game in the form of a storyline is nowhere to be found which makes the game feel like a simple rinse and repeat type of game but thanks to the large variation of upgrades and the enormous progression system, there are certainly many hours you can put in the game if this is your type of game.
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