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Dust 514

Dust 514

CCP's free-to-play shooter for PS3 aims high, but ends up falling short of its lofty ambitions.

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Dust 514 is a frustrating game. It's frustrating because its potential is clear to see. An established and popular science fiction setting, integration into the wider Eve Online universe, free admission at the door, big guns and competitive online firefights. It should be brilliant. Unfortunately it ends up being less than sum of its parts.

The major attraction for Dust 514 is the link to the MMO Eve Online. Player's actions in one game affect the world of the other, and during combat Eve pilots can bombard the battlefield. It's an interesting symbiotic component of the game, but it doesn't feature prominently enough. Perhaps that'll change over time. Indeed, I expect that as it was with Eve, Dust will get better with age (and updates, lots of updates).

First impressions of the game were largely positive, although not overwhelmingly so. I enjoyed my first handful of matches. The online modes (there's four on offer) are simple enough to jump straight into, but complex enough to allow for strategy and teamwork.

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Opening exchanges were violent, engaging affairs. In Ambush your team has a finite amount of clones (your consciousness and accrued experience instantly transfers to a new clone upon death, a neat solution to carrying your skills over to the next character each time you die - reminiscent of the premise underpinning the novel Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan) and you battle it out until one team has exhausted their reserves.

In Skirmish each team has a Mobile Command Centre (MCC); a huge ship hovering above the battlefield. Between three and five turrets are located on the map, and capturing them brings additional firepower to bear against the opposing MMC, the winners the first to destroy the enemy's floating base. There's two more modes on offer, but both are variants of Skirmish and Ambush.

Both modes are, initially, quite entertaining. Possibly made easier by playing against fellow noobs during early encounters, but entertaining none-the-less. At this point I was optimistic, thinking I'd found a shooter that I could potentially invest some hours into. Then I started to dig deeper, and the cracks started to appear.

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After a few games I began to accrue Skill Points and ISK (the currency earned through playing games), and I decided the time was right to tart up my futuristic soldier. It was then that I was confronted with Dust's overly complicated menu system. It's so unbelievably unintuitive that it borders on unfathomable. I got there, eventually, but I had to sit through pointless tutorials, and read dozens of screens in order to work out what I was upgrading and why. The loud-out system is pretty neat, with restrictions limiting what you can carry with you on your "fitting" into the battlefield, but even that is a little on the confusing side, with so many different variables and upgrades to sift through. It takes time and dedication, this is not pick-up-and-play.

There's a variety of different options when initially selecting your character, with four different factions, and even more sub-factions to choose from, but the differences between them are largely negligible. Eve fans will get a buzz from the choices, as they'll know a bit more about who's who, newcomers less so. There's Corporations (Eve's guilds) that can be joined (instructions on how to do so are not well signposted though, I had to get help from another player), and you can take part in battles on behalf of your guild for control over planets. Factional warfare is similar, with your efforts contributing to the larger war-effort of the Eve Online universe. However, you'll spend most of your time grinding away in the Instant multiplayer battles that, ultimately, mean nothing.

Dust 514

Due to the games free-to-play nature, rising through the ranks is a real grind, but I persevered even though I had been provided with a chunk of Aurum (the game's real-money currency) for the purposes of this review. Absolutely everything can be tweaked and upgraded, and whilst I welcome options and depth, CCP goes perhaps a mite too far, presumably in hopes of stringing out the experience long enough to inspire dedicated players to invest in points boosters.

Given the fiscal model of the title, you can't begrudge the developers for trying to get paid. However, the way it's all been presented is just a little bit overbearing. You're left with no illusions as to what you need to do to advance when a voice over the loudspeaker in the loading area pronounces: "Low on time? Low on skill? Purchase Aurum today!"

It's not pay-to-win, as you can acquire nearly all of the gear through in-game actions, but should you use a anything other than the vanilla weapons and equipment, replenishing your supplies often costs most, if not all, of your earned ISK. As the paying public will have access to superior weapons and equipment, if you don't join them (or unless you're a crack shot) you are effectively reduced to being cannon-fodder. That's never fun. Life is fleeting too, presumably so you chew through more load-outs, which then must be replenished in the store.

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When in combat, if you get caught unawares you have very little chance of survival, such is your vulnerability. Luckily, respawn times are fairly quick, so you're never out of the action for long. But even then you can be dropped straight in the path of danger, and on several occasions I was dispatched within seconds or returning, and sent back to the naughty step to think about what I'd done. While you're waiting to jump back in you can take the time to properly look at the mini-map, which is intuitive and well designed. You can see where your troops are, what objectives are being contested, as well as a plethora of other information. It's a real highlight.

After a few hours of organic, yet slow progression, I inputted the code and started throwing some money about, and while you can't access significantly better gear until you start leveling up skills (which, thankfully, can't be bought with cash), you can still find an edge that makes you more competitive on the battlefield.

Connecting to the community, and buddying up with other players makes for a more exciting experience, but again the convoluted menu system and unintuitive UI makes this needlessly complicated. It should be much easier to connect with other players than it currently is. It feels like the game would've been better suited to PC, where you expect additional complexity (and are better placed to access wikis and forums), rather than on console.

Dust 514

All of the issues I've mentioned so far wouldn't be significant if the game itself was up to scratch, but when it's all said and done, the action in Dust 514 feels a little lacklustre. Weapons lack weight and purpose (at least the ones I tried did); there's no satisfying kick or heft to the gunplay. The vehicles don't handle as well as one would like. Grabbing a tank improves your K/D spread no end, but they're also expensive and difficult to steer.

Once you've pushed through the first few fights, you've seen most of what Dust has to offer as it currently stands, and if you stick around long enough, at some point you're going to encounter lag (though not in game breaking amounts) and other technical issues (at one point I was loaded into a match and greeted with a black screen and the sound of gunfire, and was unable to do anything other than restart the game).

The maps that you fight in are bland and uninspiring. Whilst there's some nice design features dotted across the various muddy environments, with multi-leveled structures, and plenty of cover to dart between, they're largely open and spacious, making them a sniper's paradise. Smaller maps are easily dominated if players bring tanks and Warthog-like vehicles to the party (incidentally, when these are destroyed they explode in a ball of fire and then vanish completely from view, which is less than impressive).

Having a large pool of friends will definitely make for a more enjoyable experience, as will a previous connection to the wider Eve universe, but solo players will quickly get tired of the relentless grind and limited selection of game modes. The unintuitive menu system is a further barrier to entry; it should be much easier to connect with other players and get immersed in the intriguing meta game.

By all means download the client, after all it's free, and you might find comrades worth sticking around for. It's not a write-off by any means. It's just not brilliant either, which is a shame, because this is evidently fertile ground, and it could have been a wonderful shooter. As it stands, Dust 514 still feels like a work-in-progress.

Dust 514
06 Gamereactor UK
6 / 10
+
+ A deep and engaging meta game + Integration into the Eve universe + Lots of options and incredible depth
-
- Unintuitive interface - Lack of modes - Drab maps - Advancement requires a lot of grind
overall score
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Dust 514

REVIEW. Written by Mike Holmes

"It's not a write-off by any means. It's just not brilliant either, which is a shame, because this is evidently fertile ground, and it could have been a wonderful shooter."



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