I don't usually buy multiplayer only games, nor bother downloading the free ones apart from America's Army (free) and Red Orchestra (commercial). It's hard for me to describe why, but suffice it to say I find jumping straight into multiplayer games rather daunting, however when I first saw Shattered Horizons I thought this has to be an exception. The price was right $20 minus a 25% discount for pre-ordering it. In the end I didn't bother, but only because I noticed it had been built exclusively around DX10 graphics so wouldn't work in XP. I did have a copy of Vista, but hadn't bothered to install it since having problems trying to verify my copy back in the summer of 2007.
While installing a new power supply a few weeks ago, I decided to disconnect one of the two DVD drives I had, simply because I never used 2 drives at the same time. The spare IDE slot allowed me to install a spare hard drive that I'd almost thrown away because it was only 40Gb, but I thought, hang on, I could try installing my 64 bit copy of Vista again and just use it for playing some of the games I've bought over the last few years that were made for DX10 graphics (Crysis, Company of Heroes, Dirt 2 etc). I didn't really need a large HDD just to run the OS and peripherals.
Anyway, amazingly the only worry, re: verification was unfounded. After installing Vista, the verification process went so smoothly I wondered at what I’d done wrong the first time I’d installed the OS. Anyway, at this point I'd already forgotten about Shattered Horizons simply because of all the amazing deals that were coming from every angle. However that changed yesterday when Shattered Horizons was offered up as a great 75% off deal on the Steam Christmas Special. I though even if I find I don't like the game after playing it (there doesn't appear to be any demos of the game so the only way to play is either buy the game or get a guest pass from someone else that did buy the game. (You get three passes to hand out); afterall, $5 is hardly worth worrying about, especially if I did make the right choice. I checked virtually all of the available You Tube videos of the game and a lot of reviews. The reviews put me off a little because most said despite the game play being different and it having fantastic graphics, the game didn't have enough modes and only a few maps (four in total), but the videos and the promise of more free content soon converted me. So I bought it last night and discovered I get three guest passes which give the user three days of unlimited access playing the game. Two of those may have been taken by friends whom I’ve offered them to but there’s definitely one spare. (There may be more though as I don’t know whether these friends computers will accommodate the game yet). You have to have Vista or win 7 installed and you need a reasonable computer spec to play the game. Definitely a DX10 ready graphics card and the minimum of DUAL CORE AND 2Gigs of RAM.
You can check out details of the game via Steam (the only outlet for the game) HERE
There is just over three hours left before the 75% off deal ends, but even if you miss the deal, its still well worth the $20 you normally pay for it. I think it’s still on a smaller percentage reduction till the 3rd January when the Christmas sale ends.
Despite my apprehension at cold jumping straight into a new game with a different take on the First Person Shooter genre; (that is there is no up or down because you are fighting in the cold starkness of space), I am so enthralled by anything space I took a nose dive into the game and was amazed. I was expecting to get pawned immediately like I was when I first played Battlefield 2 online; however the great thing about this game is that it relies almost entirely on skill rather than someone having a better weapon than you. Everyone gets the same equipment and weapon. Of course, being familiar with a game is an advantage, but that always comes if you play a game long enough.
If you loved the Gemini and or Apollo space missions and have followed NASA’s journey ever since I think you’ll be captivated by this game.
Anyway, please let me know if you are interested in getting a guest pass. Do make sure your computer can accommodate the game though before you PM me.
Regards and a happy new decade
W.R.
