Hands On With Dropzone

The RTS genre can be a little intimidating for inexperienced gamers, but Dropzone by Sparkypants is definitely a game that anyone can pick up and play. The premise is simple - at the end of a 15 minute match have more points than your opponent and you win. This is, of course, easier said than done, but nonetheless after a few matches most people will get the hang of it. 

The first step in Dropzone is drafting your squad. You can select three pilots from five different classes. You can even pick three of the same class if you'd like, but the only restriction is that you can't pick the same pilot twice. During my demo the Gunner, Tank, and Mechanic were unlocked. The Gunner is quick and offensive, the Tank is strong and can take a beating, and the Mechanic can heal your party. These classes don't stray too far from what gamers would expect in any game, which makes it easily accessible for everyone. 

There are multiple ways to score in Dropzone. The first and most common way to score is by destroying hives of enemies which drop cores and upload those cores back at the center of the map. The other way to score is by completing map objectives, which are randomly selected before every match. 

One of the more surprising elements of Dropzone is that killing your opponent does very little to benefit you and really the only time you would want to kill them is when they are destroying a hive or uploading a core. Your primary focus should be on scoring and leveling up, which you can both do by killing enemies. The XP you gain is shared among your team, but you can only level one pilot at a time. When you level them, you receive extra abilities and new gear. 

As I mentioned before, Dropzone is easily accessible for most gamers and will have casual style gameplay to prepare players for the intense battle they will eventually experience. For those who have experience with RTS's or MOBA's they will feel right at home with traditional controls. 

Dropzone is a great game that allows you to get a quick gaming fix right before dinner or when you are pressed for time. Dropzone's open beta will be out by the end of the year and when the game launches it will have 2-3 maps with a new map every two months. 

Hands On With Loot Rascals

The first thing you'll notice about Loot Rascals is the colorful classic cartoon look, but once you get over the pleasing aesthetics, you find a rich, turn-based, roguelike game. Your character moves around a procedurally generated world on hexagonal tiles. Your goal is to find the exit on each level before exceeding the amount of moves on the turn counter. If you do exceed the move limit, stronger enemies will start to appear around the map. If you want to hang out and explore, you can, but this is not advised. 

Loot Rascals has a day / night cycle that affects if you or the enemy will hit first in battle. You always want to try to get the first hit, but if you're feeling pretty good about your situation, it's not too big of a deal to let them hit first. The time of day changes every five moves, so you definitely want to be aware of this as you're moving around the map, especially when you're desperate to attack.   

One of the biggest parts of Loot Rascals is the card system.  You can have a mix of ten offensive and defensive cards equipped with six in your inventory. Certain cards have bonuses that affect other cards, but are required to be in certain slots, positions, or rows. Loot cards drop all of the time so you are always switching them out. Once you find yourself with too many cards, you can decompile them for currency. 

There are also cards that you can place on other cards that give you extra long distance attacks or self heals. To use these attacks/ heals you simply select them from a pin wheel and drop a cursor on an enemy or yourself. You get so many cards that I don't think it's absolutely necessary to save your attacks for when you see a tough enemy, but you should definitely keep a few attacks handy for when you're near death. 

One of my favorite aspects of Loot Rascals is when you die the enemies will steal your card, which drops it on the server and will show up in someone else’s game. That person can then choose to send it back or keep it. If you find someone else’s card during your game you can choose to keep it or send it back. If you choose to keep the card then the person who lost the card can send an enemy to fight you. When you first start playing the game, the other player’s cards will be from strangers, but once you have a few that you’ve found, you’ll most likely be matched with the same select players. Hopefully if everyone is nice to each other you’ll receive the cards that you lost, but if you lose a good card you better cross your fingers. 

Loot Rascals will be coming to PC and the PlayStation 4 Q1 of 2017.