Preview: Awesomenauts

26 Oct, 2011

At this year’s Eurogamer Expo I spent time getting to grips with Awesomenauts, the 2D platformer and DOTA-inspired game from Ronimo games. Better decribed as a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game, Awesomenauts pits teams against each other in a frantic platform environment with the objective of destroying the enemy base. The teams themselves are comprised of a motley selection of giant robots, genetically-engineered cowboys and ghetto frogs (to name a few). The end result is damn good fun and oddly addictive.

Aesthetically the game takes a page from the likes of Castle Crashers and Alien Homid, with a cartoony visual style that could have been produced with a table in Flash. This is a good thing, as it really brings the gameplay together and I honestly cannot imagine Awesomenauts looking any other way.

As mentioned previously, the characters are a motley collection. In my match, I played as Clunk: a slow moving but powerful robot. His abilities included a powerful bite attack with his oversized metal jaws, missiles, a jet pack that allows him to fly for a short period and the ability to explode. The latter is his main attack, though it doesn’t actually kill you; just severely damages anyone in the immediate vicinity. Other characters include Sheriff Lonestar, who can summon a holographic bull to charge and gore his enemies & Leon Chameleon, who can use his natural (and likely enhanced in some over-the-top way) stealth abilities to disappear and reposition himself or escape harm. All of the 6 characters have their own unique flavour and use in a game, with a great deal of flexibility in terms of how these various abilities are employed or even altered the upgrades section.

There is definitely a deceptive learning curve present in the game, with the potential for you receiving phenomenal ass-kickings from more experienced players attached. It’s not that Awesomenauts is a hard game; it’s just that it’s one of those games (say like Super Smash Bros) where people can get scarily good. You often find yourself looking dumbfounded at the screen, while you drop-pop back into the game; wondering what the hell just happened and why did it result in you getting owned so thoroughly.

Speaking of getting rigorously beaten down and drop-pods: in Awesomenauts, in a attempt to alleviate the tedium that comes with waiting for a respawn; you instead respawn a few seconds after being killed from your teams craft in the sky, and plummet to earth via a drop-pop. During this time you can collect coin that are placed in the air to allow you to purchase new upgrades for your character. It’s a small thing, but I found that it ensured the games kept some of their momentum (as I died quite often…) even after I was shot, bitten and generally blown-up.

The coins/jewels/shiny things that you collect either via drop-pod or scattered over the level are the currency from which you buy upgrades during a match. When you kill someone you also get more points, as does the rest of your team. As the ‘xp’ is shared over your team, even when you die horribly & comically you can still contribute to the overall effort in a small way.

Awesomenauts can either be played locally via split screen (an oft neglected function) and online. Something that players online are going to be extremely thankful for is the lack of a matchmaking system. Whereas in many online multiplayer games you are into potentially excruciating waiting times before you drop into a match, in Awesomenauts you are simply joined instantly to a game. Any imbalances are evened by bots replacing any absent players. Don’t disheartened by the idea of being at a disadvantage because some of your team are bots, they’re tough and relentless ‘players’.

I’m really excited by what I’ve seen so far of Awesomenauts, it’s just damn fun to play. It looks great and the gameplay is frantic while at the same time not overwhelming. My only reservation would be that come release that are some balance issues and one or two classes emerge overpowered compared to the others, or that one in particular in notably underpowered compared to the rest. Saying that these are issues that could (and likely will) be addressed with patches. It’s definitely something I’ll picking up when it finally drops later this year. A definitive release has yet to be announced, but it will be available on both Xbox and PS3.