UFG Goes Hands on With Dirty Bomb!

London is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Some sort of calamity befell the city, leaving it barren sans the clouds of radiation and whatever was left after its citizens fled. Apparently this is good news if you’re a mercenary working for a private military company. Instead of cleaning up the streets, these companies are battling one another for…it’s actually not quit clear as  to what Dirty Bomb’s mercs are fighting over. They aren’t entering banks to loot vaults or setting up their own makeshift government. Beyond shooting one another, most of their time is spent planting C4 on some random structure within the less contaminated parts of the city. To be fair, when it comes to team-based shooters like this, gripping narratives really aren’t prerequisites for a good time. Which is the best thing I can say about Splash Damage’s latest FPS – it can definitely provide an entertaining experience.

If you’ve played any one of Splash Damage’s other games (Enemy Territory, Brink) then for the most part, you’d know what to expect here. Matches take place on large maps where one team tries to complete an assortment of objectives while the other does their best to hinder them. There are classes or roles to choose from, each of which has special abilities to help them on the battlefield. Medics can drop health packs and quickly revive fallen teammates for example. Victory is usually reserved for the team of players that operated as a cohesive unit, backing each other up while focusing on the objectives at hand.

While all of these things ring true for Dirty Bomb, Splash Damage is doing things a little differently time around. For one, the class system used in their other games has been swapped for a more character driven approach. Instead of a picking a soldier, medic, or engineer, you’ll don the shoes of Skyhammer, Aura, and Bushwhacker respectively. At first this didn’t seem to make much of a difference; a medic with a special name is still just a medic. After playing for some time though, I realized that it was possible to gauge a situation based on who was around. If I saw Bushwhacker, who’s very effective at disarming bombs, running towards the C4 charges my team just placed, I knew that spelled trouble. Similar to Valve’s Team Fortress, I didn’t have to guess the role of a player as their character of choice gave it away. Not only that but certain characters, even within the same class as others, have different abilities. Aura can place a stationary health generator that constantly heals nearby teammates. Sawbones on the other hand can toss med packs to players, making him the better choice for healing on the go.

This doesn’t mean that I didn’t get confused from time to time. Because there are more characters then there are roles, it can be tricky discerning who can do what. This is somewhat alleviated by two distinct design choices: you’re only allowed three different mercs per match and Dirty Bomb is a free-to-play game. When joining at match and during the open lobby phase, you’re allowed to pick which mercs you want to bring with you into battle. Those three characters will be the only ones you can play as during that session. I assume this set up was chosen to encourage players to work together, seeing as how no one person will be able to fill every role on the team. It isn’t as strict as Enemy Territory: Quake Wars in that certain classes were needed or else your team wouldn’t be able to complete all the objectives. But it would mean that you wouldn’t be able to benefit from the diverse skillset found in a well-rounded team.

The free-to-play aspect comes up in terms of the merc available for you to use. Two mercs, Aura and Skyhammer, are always free while other characters are rotated weekly. Bolstering your roster is done by purchasing the rest of the cast, either using in-game currency or with tangible money. This fact combined with the three character limit makes it tougher to discern the exact makeup of the opposing team’s skills. Of course if you play long enough you’ll inadvertently learn who’s who.

Another interesting change is in the character cards. As you compete with other players, you’ll unlock cards that alter characters without changing their roles. You might get a different secondary weapon, faster cool-down times for special abilities, resistance to explosive damage, and so on. There are some cosmetic changes too but so far these seem to be restricted to your weapons. Some are rarer than others, offering better options for a given merc. If you get a bunch of low level cards or cards for mercs you haven’t purchased, you can trade them in for rarer ones. It isn’t the best “carrot on a stick” system but I can understand implementing something to keep gamers coming back. If you can’t afford a new merc you can always randomly unlock an alternate version of one you do own.

Ok, so now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about the moment to moment gameplay. Splash Damage knows how to make a competent shooter. Besides a few balancing issues (it is in the beta phase after all) all of the mercs are well designed. Whether I was placing a turret with Bushwhacker or laying down cover fire with Rhino’s minigun, I was having a good time. The special abilities are fun to use, it’s easy to understand why another character might be better suited for a job, and there isn’t any “useless” mercs who are so stuck in their roles that they can’t help the team during a firefight (I’m looking at you Brink Operatives). The objectives aren’t very exciting and usually require you to blow something up. However, the fierce fighting that happens around these objectives does get the adrenaline pumping. Hearing bullets fly by while you desperately try to stop a ticking bomb from detonating is a common occurrence.

My only real gripe comes from the maps. Competitive shooters live and die by them. The issue here is that most of them (five in total) are designed with one side of the fight in mind. Some are better suited for the attacking team, with minimal objectives and large open areas that are hard to protect. Then there are some that lean towards the defenders, offering crazy choke points and easy spawn camping. Sure, a lot of it comes down to whether or not your team is working together, if you’re completing sub-objectives that open/close alternate routes, and how skilled you are at shooting people. That said, experiencing an uphill battle every time you’re placed on a particular team on certain maps is discouraging. The only time I felt that things were 100% fair was when I was playing Stop-Watch Mode because both teams had to take turns on either side.

Speaking of modes, there are currently only two to choose from: Objective and Stop-Watch. Objective focuses on an attacking team as they try to complete a map’s objectives before time runs out. Every time they complete one, they’ll get a little more time for the next. If the defending team stops them from completing any of the objectives the match is over. Stop-Watch is the same thing, only the time limit doesn’t change with the completion of objectives and both teams take turns defending and attacking. Whichever team completes the objectives in the fastest time wins. Neither mode brings anything really new to the table but both are suitable for this type of game.

In an effort not to go too far into review territory, I won’t critique everything about Dirty Bomb; again, it’s currently in open beta and therefore not a finished product. As a shooter it isn’t revolutionary and I’m not a fan of purchasable characters. Especially when games like Team Fortress 2 gives you all of the characters/roles upfront while still being free-to-play. Some of the mercs and most of the maps could use a bit of tweaking to keep gamers from becoming frustrated. At the same time, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy my time with Dirty Bomb. As uninspiring and subjective as the word “fun” is, that’s exactly what I was having while playing. That certainly counts for something. Hopefully, Splash Damage will push things in a more unique direction to make their game stand out amongst the legion of shooters on Steam. As it stands, they have a solid foundation to improve upon.