Warface - Xbox Live Arcade

    I'm just going to start out by saying that Warface is one of the weirdest choices for a game's title that I have ever seen. I mean, are we talking about some strange entity that actually has war for a face? Are we talking about soldiers showing their "war faces" kind of like athletes have a "game face"? I have no idea.
   Anyway, Warface is a Free To Play, military themed, multiplayer First Person Shooter that is available on both PC and Xbox Live Arcade. The game was released in 2013 on PC and 2014 on Xbox 360, and was created by Crytek. Interestingly enough, Crytek is actually changing their focus from full-release retail games (such as their Crysis series) to Free To Play games. From what I've seen in video game news lately, this decision has come back to bite the company pretty harshly, causing layoffs and other peril. So is Warface good enough to bring Crytek back from the brink of bankruptcy, or is Crytek going to show us their "out of business face"?

    Warface offers two main modes of play, Versus and Co-op, both of which are online multiplayer. Versus mode is pretty much the generic military shooter multiplayer that we've seen time and time again in other games. There are four Versus game types, Free For All, Team Deathmatch, Plant The Bomb, and Storm (a point capture mode). The PC version of Warface has two more gametypes, but they are not yet available on the Xbox 360.

In all modes of play Warface offers four classes for players to choose from. First, you have your common Rifleman, which is really the workhorse of Warface and carries the heaviest weapons. Then you have a Medic class, which, unsurprisingly, can heal and resurrect fallen teammates as well as carry shotguns for close-range destruction. There is also an Engineer which carries small, submachine guns, and also has an affinity for placing and disarming explosives. Finally there is the sniper class, which...well...carries sniper rifles and snipes...

Obviously the Engineer didn't want to be a part of this photo...

    For the most part, Warface's Versus gametypes work pretty well. There is a little bit of bullet-lag now and then which leads to frustrating deaths when you should have come out the victor, but, as will become a recurring theme in this review, Crytek is constantly releasing patches to tighten up the gameplay experience.

    The real meat of the Warface experience is the cooperative mode in which teams of five players tackle daily-changing missions together. Warface offers only the slightest bit of story to explain these missions, but really for a game like this, where you just shoot things mindlessly, story isn't exactly important. What story there is explains that in the near future nations have collapsed leaving only a military-industrial society in its wake. The biggest and most sinister military group is known as Blackwood, and operates across the globe subjugating the weak and seeking profit no matter the human cost. Warface comes on the scene as another military entity, only their aim is to take down the sinister Blackwood group. Each mission features a small briefing of what evils Blackwood is doing in the area and what Warface is doing to stop it, though it's never anything very interesting.

Blackwood is doing blah blah blah, you must stop them and blah blah blah

    Warface offers five Co-op missions a day, two beginner difficulty, and then one each of regular, skilled, and hardcore difficulties. These missions change every 24 hours, so there is something new to do every day. This is likely one way Crytek tries to get people to log in consistently and increase their chances of buying in-game items with real money. Cooperative levels are structured so that they really do require a good bit of teamwork between players. Be it terrain which requires two people to scale, or enemies which require flanking to defeat, working together is absolutely necessary for successful completion of the levels, especially on harder difficulties. This need for cooperation is actually the worst part of Warface, though the issue is not Crytek's fault.

    Here we go, if you've already played Warface, you knew that this had to be mentioned. The absolute worst part of the game is having to cooperate with other, usually completely inept, idiotic, knuckle dragging, racist, offensive, and just plain dumb players. Even when the game repeatedly explains to you how to work together to take down a boss enemy, these players will charge in by themselves only to die within seconds and then insult you. That would be bad enough, but your idiot medic will likely run right into the same stream of bullets to attempt to revive that player and die horribly as well, that is, if your medic is healing your team at all. I could go on for hours about the stupid things people do online, but I'll spare you the complaining.

You'll be seeing this a lot as your team herps and derps around the level, not bothering to help you.

    Warface has had a number of problems since its release in April of this year, but Crytek has been very good about releasing patches and listening to fans to implement fixes that make the game better. The game is completely free to play, though it has the option to spend real money to buy in-game credits which can be used to unlock new weapons, armor, skins, experience point boosts, and more. Obviously Crytek has to keep people playing if they want to have any hope of making money off of the game, so that's likely why they're so good about fixing problems.

    After each mission money, experience, "crowns", and equipment points are awarded based on your performance. As you gain experience and equipment points new weapons and items are unlocked for purchase in the store using either money or real money-purchased credits. Crowns allow you to purchase random boxes with weapons and item unlocks that aren't usually available until much later as well as special "crown items" which just look fancy. It's completely possible to access 99% of the game's content without paying any real money. You're going to get the best items a lot faster if you do drop some bucks on the game, though I'm perfectly content to spend nothing. If only I could buy better teammates with credits, maybe then I'd spend money on this game.

It's always easy to tell the worst players in the game, they always have the real-money, fancy items.

    Warface isn't a terrible game, but it's not always enjoyable to play. The game's below-par graphics and character models suggest that Crytek didn't want to spend more money than necessary on the game's aesthetics, but they still focus on gameplay quality. Honestly though, other players ruin this game. If you're into this style of game, absolutely download it since it's free. Give it a shot, but don't say I didn't warn you. Your best bet to enjoy this game would be to get a group of friends to play with that you know won't be stupid in-game.

Amulets and Ale Rating:

Follow Amulets and Ale on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AmuletsAndAle!