Crash Force 1-Hour Review

… Hey who put hovercrafts in my arena shooter!?

Crash Force is made by Arscanio Entertainment and is described as an online multiplayer arena shooting game at its core with RPG and racing elements. It’s set in an alternate sci-fi universe where hovercraft families rule all. It’s made in the Unreal Engine 4 and has support for both keyboard and mouse as well as controller. After trying both, I preferred the feel of keyboard/mouse over controller; but your mileage may vary.

CRASH FORCE 1

Did someone say hovercrafts? 

So here’s the main crux of the game, you’re not playing Joe Smoe with rocket launchers and machine guns in this shooter. Instead you’re piloting hovercrafts. You have nine hovercrafts to choose from that come from three factions with three classes in each faction. Each hovercraft has four abilities that take energy to use and are on cooldowns. When you look closer at the hovercrafts you begin to notice that the hovercrafts in each faction have a theme going on in two of their abilities. For example the Aquila faction’s number 4 ability is a short teleport forward and each hovercraft in that faction’s number 3 ability has to do with time/space distortion in one way or another. The three classes for each faction are a a engineer type with more utility abilities, a fighting typo built for speed and death and a tanking type built to survive a little longer while dishing out death. Each hovercraft has a basic fast shooting machine gun type weapon that’s meant to be high fire rate, low accuracy and a secondary weapon that is low fire rate/high damage more of a skill shot kind of thing. There’s also a “melee” for each hovercraft as well, but it didn’t feel very effective/worth using to me.

CRASH FORCE 4

Besides four abilities and two weapon choices for each hovercraft, there is also a general skill tree that is divided into three separate parts. You have Attack that ranges in skill from extra overall damage, extra damage to your primary weapon to a skill at the end of the tree that gives life steal. The 2nd skill tree is Defense, this has skills ranging from extra health, extra defense against primary weapons to an end skill that gives you invulnerability when you spawn. The last skill tree is Utility, this has skills ranging from increased energy regen, faster speed and an end ability that gives you full air control of your hovercraft.

Oh and you can customize your hovercraft as well. Choices range from your personal insignia, decals you can put on your hovercraft, coloring various parts of your hovercraft (neon green fan blades anyone?), different bumper types and various bodykits.

CRASH FORCE 2

Hovercrafts are cool, but what about the Crash Force itself?

 There are currently three maps available with three different game modes. Team Showdown is what it sounds like, Team Deathmatch. One Man Wolfpack is your basic Deathmatch with everyone trying to destroy everyone else. Capture the Capacitor, your basic capture the flag mode.

There is a level cap of 90 at the moment with skill points gained at every level, every 30 levels you gain an Aviation point which is used to unlock special skills. The in game store gives you the ability to purchase XP boosts, more pages to have alternative skill tree configurations and Lumens. Lumens can be bought with Real Money  to purchase in game skins and such. Loot boxes also have a chance to drop as well at the end of games, these range from common to legendary quality and hold the paint sprays, decals, body kits, Lumens and bumpers you may be looking for.

Overall I liked the concept of the game. Control felt a bit off at times , but I was controlling a hovercraft so I believe that’s how it’s supposed to feel slipping and sliding everywhere. I felt the weapons could have used a bit more difference between the two, as is I felt it didn’t matter which one I was holding down on my mouse key to spam all over my opponent. There were a few times it was taking a good bit of time to find a match, but that could be due to early access/not alot of people playing. But I did have fun playing the game flying by and watching things explode.

The game is currently available on steam for $9.99.

Overall: 6.5/10

Pros:

  • Fast feeling combat
  • Good variety of hovercrafts
  • Good variety of skills
  • Price

Cons:

  • Only EU West and US central servers at the moment
  • Some of the choices in the skill trees felt redundant
  • Lack of players at the moment
  • Controller felt all over the place compared to KB/Mouse
  • Not enough difference between primary and secondary weapons

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