Shattered Horizon Review

“Verticality” is a term often used in marketing to describe what has become the first-person shooter Holy Grail. Game designers work countless hours developing new ways to make FPS players think about the game world as a three-dimensional space where threats can come from above and below. Unfortunately, many of these methods end up feeling contrived, and very few FPS games truly succeed at the concept. From first-time game developers Futuremark, Shattered Horizon is a multiplayer first-person shooter where verticality doesn’t matter, because no direction is up.

With all this moon-rock, I’m sure you’d make a killing on eBay.

Combat in Shattered Horizon consists of three variations on deathmatch where players use jetpacks to navigate gravity-free environments. This unique idea greatly increases the possible situations one might encounter, as moving in three dimensions allows relatively small maps to feel much larger. Although it feels like a generic FPS at first, players will soon realize that the key to winning at Shattered Horizon is attacking enemies from directions they don’t expect. By holding the right mouse button, you’re given the ability to rotate your perspective, meaning that you’re often fighting lopsided enemies, making the classic “aim a little bit up for a headshot” tactics non-applicable. There’s a lot of hidden depth to this game that skilled players will undoubtedly master.

Encounters end up feeling more like dogfights that one would find in a flight simulator, as speed, momentum, and facing are key. For instance, flanking around the edge of the map and attacking your enemies from behind might allow you to perform a “tankshot,” a precise attack that causes your foe’s jetpack to explode, causing an instant kill. While the action unfolds in space, your battlefield isn’t infinite; boundaries involve millions of microscopic asteroids that, if contacted, will puncture your suit and quickly kill you. While it seems gimmicky, this mechanic creates natural borders for each of the four maps, and reinforces the feeling of open space.

While not exactly original, the nifty death-cam means that you will always know who killed you.

Shattered Horizon gives you the choice of playing as a member of either the International Space Agency or The Moon Mining Corporation, two sides fighting over supplies in a not-too-distant future where a devastating explosion has destroyed half of the moon. While the fiction feels fairly fleshed-out, it serves little more purpose than to give you something to read on the many loading screens, as both factions are palette-swapped astronauts with assault rifles.

I mention the assault rifle because it is literally the only firearm to be found in Shattered Horizon. While the lack of weapon selection was initially puzzling, I soon discovered that there’s actually some sense behind it. For instance, the assault rifle is rugged, and can perform the functions that would require several different guns in any other game. At a distance, the assault rifle’s integrated scope gives it the accuracy of a sniper, providing you fire in short bursts. If you find yourself face-to-face with an enemy, the assault rifle can switch to a quick rate-of-fire (like a submachine gun), allowing you to  empty a magazine in no time flat. You’re also armed with an under-barrel grenade launcher, handy for sending ice grenades to block an enemy’s line of sight, electromagnetic pulse grenades that disable enemy equipment, and explosive charges that do old-fashioned splash damage. As a result, Shattered Horizon lacks the rock-paper-scissors mechanics found in most FPS games, meaning that you’ll never feel as though you lost a firefight because you were carrying the wrong equipment.

Ice grenades are basically the smoke grenades you’ll find in any other team-based FPS, except here you can launch them great distances.

It’s obvious that Futuremark is a company that creates benchmarking software, as the visuals of Shattered Horizon can be truly breathtaking. Many of the “next-gen” graphical techniques are in full effect here, such as motion blur and dynamic lighting, and the engine really succeeds at rendering the surfaces of grey moon rock and metallic space stations. Considering it’s a budget game, it’s surprising how many of the multiplayer maps feature large set-piece battles. Fighting around the wreckage of a destroyed International Space Station can be awe-inspiring, and the realistic visuals certainly heighten the experience. Unfortunately, the game requires a DirectX 10 graphics card and at least Windows Vista to play it, so if you’re still running your trusty 7800GT, you’re out of luck. Shattered Horizon definitely aims for high-spec computers, as I was able to completely maximize the graphical settings on a PC running two GTX 275 cards in SLI mode. Even then the framerate would fluctuate, especially in matches with high player counts. Given the developer’s lineage, it’s surprising that the game doesn’t include any kind of benchmarking tool, save an in-game frame rate counter.

In addition to the shiny graphics, Shattered Horizon has solid sound design. While the retort of your assault rifle is fairly generic, the abundance of echo and reverb means that the sound is quite muffled. Actually, almost all of the sounds effects in Shattered Horizon are incredibly subtle, greatly adding to the atmosphere (no pun intended). The only sound effects you’ll ever hear clearly are those directly related to your combat situation, such as bullets whizzing by your face and nearby explosions. The silence is refreshing, especially when games such as Call of Duty attempt to push as much ambient noise through your speakers as possible.

For a budget game, there’s no denying it looks good.

Unfortunately, the chief concern in recommending Shattered Horizon is the quantity of content. While there’s a nice selection of maps and modes of play, the majority of them feel generic. However, because the majority of battles don’t take place directly within maps, but rather in the space around maps, it becomes easier to overlook this flaw. As a truly unique FPS experience with a budget price and triple-A production values, it’s difficult to not get your money’s worth with Shattered Horizon.